10th Assembly: How Next Senate President, House Speaker Will Emerge

The factors that would determine how the leadership of the 10th National Assembly would emerge have been revealed by Ajibola Bashiru, Spokesperson of the 9th Senate.

Bashiru revealed this while speaking in an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday, where he also said that Senators-elect and members-elect could compete to be presiding officers of the National Assembly.

The positions of the senate president and speaker of the House of Representatives have engaged public attention in view of the same faith ticket of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, and his vice, Kashim Shetima who are both Muslims from the South West and North East respectively.

According to Bashiru, the 10th National Assembly will be built on a harmonious relationship between the executive and legislative arms of government.

Out of the 109 seats in the Senate, the APC won 57 seats from the ones so far declared, giving it the majority. It is therefore expected to produce the president of the Senate.

Out of the 360 seats in the House of Representatives, the APC won 162 out of those declared so far while the Peoples Democratic Party got 105. The Labour Party won 34 while the New Nigeria Peoples Party won 18 seats.

The APC is also expected to produce the speaker of the House.

Explaining the factors to be considered before electing the next senate president and house speaker, Bashiru said, “A lot of variables that will operate on the mind of our people are issues of competence, capacity, ranking, religion, ethnicity, political expediency, and of course loyalty to the party; we don’t want a situation whereby you have a leadership of an assembly that will be at loggerhead.

“As the Executive Arm, you will see as far as some of us are concerned, the ninth assembly has shown what can be achieved in terms of legislative and constitutional advancement where there is a harmonious relationship between the executive and legislative arm.

“I think we want to build on the harmonious relationship and that will rephrase who eventually have that kind of temperament to be able to lead the 10th assembly towards that harmonious relationship between the executive and the legislative arm of government.

Speaking further, Bashiru said the party will zone leadership of the 10th National Assemble after Ramadan fast.

He said, “I believe that our party will ultimately take a decision on the zoning possibly after Ramadan and certainly before June when the next Assembly will be convoked.

“It will be in the best interest of our party to zone the offices so that we can narrow the number of contestants because when you have eight persons from a single political party contesting, it creates a problem for us to have a cohesive force going into the election.”

However, Bashiru noted that the APC National Working Committee (NWC) and the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) have not taken any decision yet on which of the six geopolitical zones will produce the next Senate President.

He said, “I’m not aware that the NWC of our party has taken a position on the issue of zoning and where the zoning will be done.

“I’m not aware that the NEC of our party has taken any decision but party leaders will be making a lot of permutations to ensure a seamless relationship between the executive and the legislative arms.

“For instance, arguments may be canvassed like the religious argument that the President is a Muslim, the Vice-President is a Muslim, will it not be reasonable to have a Christian as the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives and you cannot wish away such argument particularly when you see the divisive nature that politics has taken in recent time in Nigeria.

“You may also look at the North-West (geopolitical zone) which has produced the bulk of the votes by which we won the Presidency. Will you discountenance their contribution?”

Bashiru also said the party may also consider the South-South as an emerging strong base for the party because the party did well from the zone in the last elections.