Barring any last-minute shifting of grounds, the election of the President of the 10th Senate may witness three nominations from members on the floor of the red chamber on the day of inauguration as the former Governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari; and the Senate Chief Whip, Orji Uzor Kalu, have vowed not to step down for the preferred candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Godswill Akpabio.
This is as the President-elect, Senator Bola Tinubu, yesterday returned to Nigeria eight days before the inauguration of his administration to drive the implementation of the zoning of the National Assembly leadership by the ruling APC.
The North-central senators-elect have, however, been making serious moves to woo other senators from other geopolitical zones for one of their own to emerge as the Deputy Senate President.
The APC had micro-zoned the position to Senator Barau Jibrin from the North-west state of Kano.
In a related development, the G7 aspirants for the position of the Speaker of the 10th House of Representatives have met with Greater Minority with a resolution to present a consensus candidate for the Speaker and Deputy Speaker positions.
Investigation revealed that barring the outcome of further negotiations, the Senators-elect might nominate Senators Akpabio, Kalu, and Yari as their candidates for the position of Senate President on the day of their inauguration.
It was further learnt that Yari might choose to step down for Kalu before the commencement of voting so that he could contest the deputy Senate President position.
But at the moment, the race is too close to call as each of the three contenders is laying claims to having enough members that could give them victory.
Sources close to Yari and Kalu told THISDAY that the two candidates would challenge Akpabio on the day of their inauguration.
There are also strong indications that the senators-elect would also nominate three contestants for the position of Deputy Senate President.
The top contenders are Senators Barau Jibrin, who is the party’s preferred choice, Sani Musa, and Yari, who would have stepped down for Kalu during the Senate presidency race.
Akpabio and the other anointed candidates of the APC are not resting on their oars as they were going after the members of the opposition political parties last week for their support.
A Senator-elect from the North-west geopolitical zone told THISDAY yesterday that no candidate can boast of having 69 loyal members.
He said: “The highest each of them could boast of is between 40 and 45 committed members”.
Some of the aspirants are spending hard currencies to realise their ambition with most of the rooms in some five-star hotels in Abuja fully booked by the aspirants.
The aspirants ensured that some of the elected members of the 10th Senate had relocated to the hotels for easy accessibility and meetings.
