North must retain senate presidency – Yari
Abdul’Aziz Yari, former governor of Zamfara state, says that the largely Muslim north should produce the next president of the 10th Senate. According to him, the north gave the All Progressives Congress (APC) the highest votes in the February 25 presidential election.
Speaking after meeting President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday, Yari urged the ruling party to reward performance and not pander to religion or ethnicity sentiments when zoning key offices in the 10th national assembly.
“I’m advising the party, that they should reward performance, not religion. Because religion is not in the constitution of Nigeria, and it is not in our manifesto and our constitution,” Yari said.
“Everyone knows the role that we played, despite the fact that other people are thinking we have our own. But we voted on the party line which gave the APC leeway to grab the presidency again.
“Therefore, we’re saying the party should do the right thing. And those that are going around saying ‘Muslim-Christian,’ should be very careful. Our education in politics is more than that now.” He said northerners would be annoyed should the APC sidestep them to pick the next senate president from another region.
“The 10th assembly is entirely distinct from the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth assemblies. Any party with a majority often holds that position with two thirds of the vote. But our situation is very different,” Yari said.
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“Why? Because in the house of representatives, I told him (the president) that the minority are having the higher number there. They have 182, while our party has 178. In the senate where we used to have like 65, 70, we now have 59 and the opposition has 50.
“In taking decision of the party, they have to put these into consideration and look at how it’s going to be done. Because in the end of the whole exercise, whatever happens, we believe stron gly that election must hold in both chambers.”
