By Jimmy T. Ajim

The 8th National Assembly will be inaugurated in June. The election of the Senate President in the upper chamber will take the centre stage, ditto for the House of Representatives’ speakership.

The Senate

The Senate President has now been zoned to the North Central by the new majority party, APC.

The zoning has merit given that General Buhari is from the North, while Professor Oshinbajo is from the West.

The South East and South-South are presumably out of the power game since they did not ‘deliver’ APC in their regions and their parties are already in the minority.

Zoning the Senate President to the North Central has brought to the fore the names of George Akume (Benue State), Bukola Saraki (Kwara State) and Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa State).

There is also the clamour from the North East for Senator Danjuma Goje to vie for the position on the premise that that zone has never produced the Senate President from inception. Senator Lawan Ahmad from Yobe State is equally rumoured to be interested.

Let us x-ray the candidates for the job and see who appears to be best suited.

Saraki is a two-term governor of Kwara State and a ranking senator. He has accumulated experience in politics having been sufficiently nurtured by his late father, Dr Olusola Saraki. He is eminently qualified to assume the Senate presidency. However, his undoing is the allegation that he has unresolved issues with the EFCC on Societe Generale Bank. Again, on religious grounds, one may posit that as a Muslim like GMB, it may be out of place to have him occupy the seat just like what happened when Senator Ahmed Tinubu was touted as GMB’s running mate in the just concluded elections. The anti-corruption mantra of the in-coming regime may not tolerate leaders with EFCC issues spangled on their necks.

Adamu is also a two-term governor of Nasarawa State, and a ranking senator like Saraki. He is equally qualified to head the Senate given his vast experience in politics. His let-down is also the alleged issues he has with the EFCC similar to Saraki. Additionally, he is  a Muslim like GMB which the combination may not strike federal character equilibrium on the religious pedestal. Similarly, GMB and his party may frown at the EFCC smeared toga on Adamu until he is cleared.

Akume, just like the two senators discussed above, served two terms as governor of Benue State, and is a ranking senator as well as the Minority Leader in the  current senate.

Akume contributed positively to the merger of CPC and ACN culminating in the birth of APC. He almost single-handedly delivered Benue to APC in the last presidential and gubernatorial elections.

Akume, for short, is clearly a step ahead of Saraki and Adamu from the North Central in selecting who becomes the next Senate President.

As the Minority Leader, he established the 7th Senate with quality and ideological opposition to the chagrin but admiration of his party, APC. His colleagues see him as a unifying fulcrum for therevival of progressive politics in the Senate, thus snowballing into the unprecedented victory in the March 28 and April 11 polls for his party.

Akume’s academic qualifications with eight years of distilled experience as governor, and now Minority Leader, is capable of bringing this creative wealth of experience to bear in steering the ship of the senate as President, as well as tackling the hydra-headed monster called ‘corruption’ in tandem with the philosophy of the GMB government.

Akume has neither EFCC nor ICPC issues established against him to date.

He is a Christian and should therefore be accepted to lead the senate as against Saraki and Adamu if we are to bring in, yet again the issue of religion. A good balance would place President Buhari-Muslim and Akume-Christian.

Some critics opine that since the Senate President, David Mark, is from Benue State like Akume, it will be unfair to put the latter’s name forward to succeed Mark. But Mark and Akume are from different political parties.

As a self-opinionated spade-caller and an incurable patriot of my country,Nigeria, it is my considered view that Akume,  by God’s grace, be given the mandate to lead the 8th Senate as President.

*Ajim is resident in London.