In this piece culled from The PUNCH, TOPE OMOMGBOLAGUN examines the tasks ahead of the ruling All Progressive Congress as the 10th Senate elects its leaders in June

On June 9, 2022, Eagles Square was agog as Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was declared winner of the All Progressive Congress primary elections.

The elections didn’t come easy as what started around 8 pm the previous night didn’t end until 11 am the next morning. The 12 hours windows witnessed a whole lot including candidates stepping down, some heartbroken and others wounded; it was a day where people counted their gains and losses.

By the end of the primary, Tinubu emerged winner by a landslide after beating the likes of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo; former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, and Senate President, Ahmad Lawan.

With votes from over 2,300 delegates, Tinubu polled a total of 1,271 votes, more than four times the votes scored by his closet rival, Amaechi who had 316 votes.

Osinbajo, Lawan, and Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State came behind the duo with 235, 152, and 47 votes respectively.

Tinubu’s victory was the beginning of a dilemma of power balance, diversity and inclusivity for the ruling APC particularly the conversation over a Muslim-Muslim ticket.

One of the speeches that stood out that night was that of Nicholas Felix who stepped down for the vice president and warned the delegates who turned deaf ears to his opposition to a Muslim-Muslim ticket

Felix said, “Apart from the North and the South, Nigerians are divided into two religions, we have Muslims and Christians. I grew up with Muslims—wonderful people. Many of them are my friends, but we cannot have a Muslim-Muslim ticket in this election.”

Spectacularly, the night preceding Tinubu’s victory the delegates had been bombarded with text messages from unknown persons predicting that Tinubu would field a Muslim running mate if nominated as the party’s presidential candidate. The Tinubu camp quickly denounced the text messages.

As predicted, Tinubu, a Muslim fielded Senator Kashim Shettima as vice-president, a Muslim from North East.

The choice of the vice presidential candidate was greeted by heavy criticism and an avalanche of backlash from Nigerians and notable Christian bodies and pastors like Paul Eneche and Sarah Omaku spoke against the ticket even after the elections had been conducted.

According to the Christian Association of Nigeria’s spokesperson, Adebayo Oladeji, making such a decision in a polarised country is a wrong move.

More troubling were members of the party like a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara and an ex-government secretary Babachir Lawal, who rejected the move.

Despite the religious controversies that the ruling party got enmeshed in, the APC won the presidential election with Tinubu polling scored a total of 8,794,726 votes beating his two closest rivals, Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party.

The APC also won the majority seats in the National Assembly with a total number of 219 out of 469 seats.

It currently has a clear majority in the Senate.

Having garnered the highest number of seats thus far, according to National Assembly traditions and conventions, the ruling party is expected to produce the major leadership for both chambers.

In the Senate, some of the contenders for the Senate presidency are Senators Jibrin Barau (Kano Central), Sani Musa (Niger East), Ali Ndume (Borno South) Orji Kalu (Abia North), and Godswill Akpabio (Akwa-Ibom NorthWest ).

Others are Senators Osita Izunaso (Imo West), Patrick Ndubueze (Imo North), Abdul’Aziz Yari (Zamfara West), and Ahmad Lawan (Yobe North), Gov Dave Umahi (Ebonyi South), Adams Oshiomole (Edo North) amongst others.

Stakeholders have however argued that since the number one and two citizens are Muslims, it was only fair to have a Christian as number three.

Also, a school of thought argued that since the South-East has often cried marginalisation, particularly the agitations that have followed the loss of Obi’s presidency dream, the Senate Presidency should be zoned to the South-East.

Also, different groups have continued to mount pressure on the APC to zone the seat to allow for a Christian from the South-South or South-East to become the Senate president since it was a religious debt that the party owes Nigerians.

Another has also argued that the Senate Presidency and other key positions should be by competence and capacity.

They also argued that lawmakers be allowed to choose their leaders based on the candidates that have the highest acceptability among colleagues.

The stakeholders argued that if the party imposes a candidate on the lawmakers, there could be another experience like the Senator Bukola Saraki-led eight assembly where he upstaged the party and emerged the Senate President against the party’s choice.

A pointer to a likely recurrence of that was the recent threat by the when opposition members of the House of Representatives to upsurge the ruling party over the seat of the Speaker.

The lawmakers-elect met in Abuja where they fine-tuned strategies for using their numbers as bargaining power in their negotiations with the speakership aspirants.

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