By next month, precisely June 6, the National Assembly is billed to change its leadership. MUYIWA OYINLOLA examines the likely successor of the Senate President, David Mark who has been piloting the affairs of the Red Chamber since the last eight years

With the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) at both the Presidential and National Assembly elections held on March 28, the party is expected to take over the leadership of the National Assembly on June 6, when the Eighth Assembly is inaugurated.

Although there is no constitutional provision barring the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presently in control of its leadership (which will henceforth be in the opposition) from continuing to pilot its affairs, the tradition has been that the ruling party produces its leaders.

The first eight years of democratic governance beginning from 1999 was fraught with instability in both arms of the legislature. While the upper house produced five Presidents of the Senate within the period, the lower house fared marginally better, chalking up three Speakers. A measure of stability was achieved in the post-2007 legislature, where the Senate had just one President in eight years in the person of Senator David Mark, the House of Representatives still maintained its average of three Speakers in eight years.

Against the backdrop of the unquantifiable benefits of a united and unified legislature to the realisation of the set goals of the government in waiting, efforts have been revved up towards the seamless emergence of a consensus leadership.

Presently, three senators, all from the Northern part of the country are top in the race for Mark’s job: Minority Leader, George Akume; Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, Bukola Saraki, both from the North Central geo-political zone; and Chairman, Senate Committee on Public Accounts, Senator Ahmad Lawan from the North East.

There is no competitor from the Southern part of the country yet.

Recall that Senator Chris Nwabueze Ngige recently advised the people of South East zone to forget the hope to clinch the position of the senate President since they were not able to vote APC candidates in the senatorial election.

“No APC senatorial candidate was voted for in the recently concluded senatorial election for the coming new administration in the South East zone, so for the senate president the South East is being worked over by the rest of other zones”, Ngige hinted.

Watchers of the on-going lobby and other observers of the Senate proceedings say Akume and Saraki are two strong characters for the position, considering their enviable antecedents within and outside the Senate.

They also describe Lawan as eminently qualified to occupy the position owing to his articulate disposition to legislative business, but 10 out of the 13 Senators elected on the platform of the APC, disowned him at the weekend as their consensus candidate for the position.

The spokesperson of the group, Danjuma Goje ( Gombe Central), in a press briefing with Senate correspondentmaintained that no zone will be allowed to impose candidate on them.

Goje who addressed the press along with nine other Senators – elect from the zone, said as far as they are concerned from the North East, they are still pleading with party leadership to officially zone the position to them , after which whoever that will emerge as consensus candidate will be decided by them and not by any other zone.

While Akume and Saraki are evidently ahead of the pack, the body language of the APC leadership and private sentiments expressed by many returning senators is swaying in favour of Akume.

Akume, who is returning to the Senate for the third term, is Minority Leader of the Seventh Session of the Upper Legislature, a position he holds with uncommon maturity and comportment.

Those canvassing the candidature of Akume are persuaded that the Benue North West lawmaker has piloted the affairs of the minority party in the upper chamber creditably and deserves to be promoted to a higher office.

He is credited with facilitating the enthronement of the APC brand in the North Central Zone, having painstakingly stayed the course through the gradual evolution of the party from the Action Congress, (AC), through the Action Congress of Nigeria (CAN), on to the eventual emergence of the amalgam called the APC.

This was at a time when the opposition could only boast of one state, Nasarawa in the North Central zone. The APC has since swept five out of six gubernatorial positions and many legislative seats in the zone, in the recent political earthquake.

Saraki is seen as a ‘more recent progressive’, a product of the 2013 ‘New PDP’ movement which witnessed the breakaway of five former PDP governors to join the opposition.

The APC is also being sensitive to the need to ensure fairness to all ethno-cultural components of the country. Much as he is from the North Central zone, Saraki cannot deny his cultural affinity to Yorubaland which has also produced the Vice President-elect, Prof Yemi Osinbajo.

As a respected leader of the APC who prefers anonymity put it, ‘APC will not make the mistake of having kinsmen from the same ethnic stock in the nation’s Number Two and Number Three positions. It runs against the grain of the progressive ethos which the party preaches.’

However, checks on the callers at Akume’s Maitama, Abuja residence indicated that he may have got the blessing of notable party leaders including former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Adamu Aliero and National Leader of the APC, Chief Bisi Akande, who thronged the place at the weekend.

Outgoing Governor of Kano State who was recently elected to represent Kano in the Eightt Senate, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, governor-elect of Adamawa State, Alh Mohammed Jibrilla Bindow and outgoing Deputy Governor of Akume’s home state, Benue, Chief Stephen Lawani, also came calling.

Presidential Liaison Officer to the National Assembly under the Obasanjo-Atiku administration, Alh Kashim Imam, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Umar Na’Abba, former Military Administrator of Benue State, Col Aminu Isa Kontagora and Senator Anie Okonkwo also visited.

Former Governor of Plateau State and returning Senator, Joshua Dariyeas well as his Kogi Central counterpart, Mohammed Salami Ohiare equally identified with the APC leadership’s vision by visiting Akume. Usually, authoritative sources hinted that Ohiare actually showed subdued interest in the position and shared his thoughts with a respected leader of the APC. He reportedly hinged his ‘qualification’ for the position on the fact that he is a ranking senator, having served in the position between 2003 and 2007. The APC chieftain was said to have told him to bury the thought and tow the swing of the party which explains his visit to Akume mid-week to demonstrate loyalty to the party’s line of thought.