The leadership of a faction of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo has cautioned the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, against picking the next Senate President from the North.
Okechukwu Isiguzoro, the group’s Secretary General asked Tinubu not to pick a Senate President that would impeach him or join his detractors to fight against his policies.
Isiguzoro made the call while stressing that a Christian from the Southeast should be allowed to emerge as the Senate President in 2023.
Speaking with Media Talk Africa, the Ohanaeze chieftain said: “We believe that the best thing APC should do at this moment is to allow a Christian to occupy the Senate Presidency since there is a Muslim-Muslim ticket in the presidency to balance the equation. Any attempt to give back the North to the Senate Presidency would sink the country. What we must do at this moment is a process of national healing, and the national healing is that of integration of the Southeast since the region has accepted APC for the first time and we know that the party will produce two governors at the end of the day.
“What we are saying is that the President-elect should do his homework very well; what we are afraid of is if he doesn’t do his homework very well, he might end up shooting himself in the foot. The president-elect should avoid shooting himself in the foot by picking the wrong Senate President from the Southeast; he should not pick someone that would impeach him or would be an opposition to his policies.”
He urged the Senate to amend its standing rules to allow a first-timer become the Senate President under Tinubu’s administration.
“He should not fall into the hand of his detractors by bringing one of them to become the senate president; he should resist by allowing the old order of the Senate standing rule of the old charter to become the senate president.
“The Senate must amend the rule based on the necessity to allow a first-timer to become the president. If Akpabio can become a Minority Leader during his first term in the Senate then the Southeast should be given a free hand,” he said.
