The political horse-trading that has always been associated with who becomes principal officers in the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly may have been prevented from rearing its ugly head in the coming 10th National Assembly. 

Reports have it that barring any last minute changes, the All Progressives Congress [APC,] has already zoned the positions of Senate President and Deputy Senate President, to the South-South geopolitical zone and North-West geo-political zone respectively.

Senator Godswill Akpabio

It was reported that although, the party is yet to come up with an official position on the zoning of 10th National Assembly leadership slots, but, a top source in the party, who is also in Aso Rock, was quoted to have said that the South-South zone may get the Senate President’s position.

However, the source who spoke to Vanguard’s correspondent under the condition of anonymity said that, Senator Godswill Akpabio and Senator Barau Jubril, have been tipped to occupy the positions.

He claimed that top party leaders in the party, are rooting for Senators Godswill Akpabio and Barau Jubril from Akwa Ibom and Kano states for the positions of Senate President and Deputy Senate President respectively.

He said, “We are not even bothered much about where the Speaker of the House of Representatives would go because, the bigger issue has to be sorted out before any other one; and the bigger issue is that of the Senate President and once that is sorted out, others will automatically sort out naturally. In a meeting we had recently, we already chose our President and Deputy except Tinubu disagrees with it.

Further talking, he said among the contenders, they have seen very competent hands and trust worthy persons who share in the vision of the incoming administration and apart from that, they were also looking at the state performances as well as party loyalty.

He said, “Quite honestly, we have been on this matter for weeks and we have been making informal consultations across board, including those outside our party. We will present the zoning suggestions in respect of Senate alone, to the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and we will discuss others subsequently.”

The source also claimed that if not for some obvious reasons of balancing, North-West geopolitical zone, particularly, Senator Barau Jubrin, would have been a perfect fit for the presidency position. But, they have to bend backwards and appeal to him and the zone to allow the South-South geopolitical zone to take the shot while they beef up the seat with Jubrin adoption as the Deputy Senate president and it is not a question of guessing who could be, we all know Akpabio is the only ranking senator that could be considered from the South-South zone.”