Senate Presidency: Akume disagrees with Tinubu, Akande on zoning

The Punch - Nigeria

The Senate Minority Leader and frontline contender in the race for the Senate Presidency, Senator George Akume, on Friday disagreed with the Pioneer National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Chief Bisi Akande and a leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, over their declaration that zoning arrangement won’t be used to determine the next Senate President.
Akume, who spoke with journalists in his Abuja residence on Friday evening, maintained that the party, before now, had adopted a zoning arrangement which favoured the emergence of the president of the 8th senate, from the North Central, being his geopolitical zone.
Akande had in an interview with The PUNCH earlier this week, said the party would not employ the use of zoning to determine the next senate president and that anybody was free to fight for the position.
He had said, “We want the best man to occupy the position. But the trouble is that some people have been talking about zoning and we are asking questions. Is it zoning according to nationality?
“Within the North-Central alone, there are so many nationalities. Is it zoning according to religion? So, we want to be very careful so that we don’t introduce into our system what had not been there before.”
“We want to be careful, otherwise, we won’t be able to produce the best. We are trying to select the best man. We don’t want to entertain what brought the PDP down.”
Also, Tinubu, in an interview with journalists in Abuja on Thursday, said zoning would not be used to compromise the quality of leadership for the National Assembly adding that the party had decided to allow all those interested in the leadership of the federal parliament, to contest.
He had said, “Merit will not be compromised. You have to be competent; you have to possess the kind of character, attributes of the leader. You have to be pan-Nigerian and be a very solid character to lead the National Assembly and that is what we are talking about.
“We would not use zoning to determine and compromise the credibility, the qualification of an individual. If you take zoning as discriminatory in some instances, you might compromise the quality of an individual. Let everybody aspire.”
But Akume, insisted that zoning was part and parcel of the politics of Nigeria, arguing that Dr.Goodluck Jonathan became the President of Nigeria as a result of zoning.
He said, “Even if zoning is not explicitly stated in the Constitution, there is always this letting to understanding that there must be fairness and balance in the occupation of strategic positions. We should not throw away zoning.
“In every zone, there are capable Nigerians that will hold their own in every endeavour. So, basically zoning is acceptable to me because it ensures stability. I have not heard from the party that they have jettisoned zoning.
“I remember, the last meeting we had, there was this issue that it has been zoned to the North-Central. I do not know it has been taken away because the party has not said they are taking it away but all I want to say is that the party made a comment on it.
“I am a faithful party man. I was part of the team that negotiated the merger of this party and I am also in the privilege position to talk about the dynamism of APC.”
Akume said there was nothing wrong with the North- Central, and in particular, Benue State,   producing the Senate President all the time even as he argued that the North-West has also, always producing the president of the country.
He said, “I moved from one platform to another. From PDP which I co-founded to the ACN and eventually, I became the Minority Leader and in that vantage position, I became the Chairman or the leader of the caucus party in the Senate.
“I believe that given this track record, I am sufficiently prepared to take a short at the highest office in the Senate.
“As a Minority Leader, automatically I should have become the presiding officer and it is important to take note of this. For anybody to say I withdrew is purely in the imagination of a few.
“To say I withdrew because I have some skeletons in the cupboard is not true. I have a service career that clearly exonerates me from any of these practices that are associated with men and women in public service.
“I believe that I am not a saint and I do know that sainthood is within the realm of extra-ordinary persons and I believe that given my track record and the fact that I have been leading my caucus in the Senate, I should be considered the most worthy man to preside over the affairs of the Senate”