8th NASS: Senate President Should Go To Northeast—Sen. Bukar

The Senator representing Yobe East Senatorial District in the Red Chamber, Senator Ibrahim Abba Bukar, has said it will be unfair if the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) eventually decides to accept the recommendation zoning the Senate President seat to North Central and the Speakership position of the House of Representatives to South West in the 8th National Assembly.

Speaking in an interview in Abuja, Bukar, a former governor of Yobe State, who was elected for the third time into the Senate in the 2015 general election, said the proper thing to do was to zone the Senate Presidency or Speakership of the House of Reps to the North East, as against the Deputy Senate President seat proposed for the region.

According to him, “This first step so far taken is a wrong step. The Segun Oni adhoc committee has made recommendation to the leadership of the party. The recommendation so made to the party is totally wrong, biased and heavily lopsided. I just hope the party will do something about it. I hope Mr. President-elect will do something about it. Of course, whatever anybody says, whatever the party says, whatever the President-elect says, at the end of day it is the members of the National Assembly who are going to elect their leaders any way. So, I just hope this first step is corrected.

It is wrong for this committee to recommend that North Central which has produced four different Senate Presidents in this country should continue to produce another Senate President, while the Northeast has never ever produced a single Senate President; never ever produced a single Speaker. The highest we have ever held in the northeast zone is the Deputy Speaker. Now again, the zone is not given the Senate President or at least even the Speakership.”

He added that, “The southwest which has the Vice President is again given the Speakership. This is very, very unfair. This is a continuous marginalization of the northeast which we have been fighting against all this while. The continuous marginalization and neglect of the northeast has always been our bane. We have always been relegated to the background. With over fifty years of marginalization, they made us poverty-stricken, the poorest part of Nigeria, the most underdeveloped part of Nigeria.

They still want to continue the same practice. This is the practice of the southwest, the North Central. The North West of course has always been everywhere marginalizing us. Now they have the President, they still want to continue to marginalize us. So, this is a very wrong step. I just hope we are not going to go along that line.”

FROM MICHAEL JEGEDE
MEDIA PRACTITIONER
ABUJA