Least Northcentral can accept from APC is Deputy Senate President – Sani Musa

By Musa Baba Adamu

One of the key contenders for the office of Senate President, Sani Musa, has said the least the North Central zone of the country will accept from the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) is Deputy Senate President, even as he warned that membership of the party is voluntary while principles are involuntary.
Sani said this during a meeting with the national chairman of APC, Abdullahi Adamu, where he expressed shock that despite the altruistic decision of North Central caucus of the party to allow a southern Christian emerge as Senate President in view of the secularity of Nigeria, APC still did not consider North Central worthy for any position in the 10th National Assembly.
He said “When I made my declaration, I said, looking at the secularity of this country and looking at the permutations when we took the risk of same faith ticket and we were successful. There are certain times we should not push our luck. I said, we have competent distinguished Senators-elect from anywhere. That is, because we have a Muslim President elect. We have a Muslim Vice President elect and we thought that at least the third person should be a Christian.
“As leader of the North Central, we had a caucus meeting before the decision was taken and after it was taken. The caucus agreed that I should make my declaration known to Nigerians. We looked at the secularity of the country and our caucus now said we should go for the Deputy Senate President. Your formula was a blow to us and we felt are we really part of this country? Because when you are even talking about the North, we have always been at the receiving end.”
The Niger East Senator, who lamented that his zone have been marginalised, said things must be changed for peace to reign in the party.
“Whenever we see anything that is not right, it is only fair if we are good followers to bring it to the table and when they said the national chairman is inviting us for this, I agreed. I am standing here in my own corner as a distinguished senator, who is also aspiring and also, I am here to speak in respect of my distinguished colleagues, Senators-elect from the north central geopolitical zone of this country.
“We have been saying that the status quo cannot continue but if we do not allow internal democracy to prosper, how do we expect to change things? We are the ones talking about certain principles we want to see, but we are not acting it. This issue can be corrected.
“I am very sure you will go back and take a look especially when we are talking about internal democracy because even the issue of the National Assembly is an issue of internal democracy.
“Our geographical settings have become like institutions. You cannot give positions to individuals.
“I would have expected my brothers from the Northwest to stand against this template and say let us toe the line we have been towing since 1999. This injustice needs to be corrected. We have 5 of six Govs. 11 of 19 senators. We will However make sure that no party takes our chance inside that chamber. It is going to be an APC affair.
“I have seen a situation where one zone has the Secretary to the government of the Federation, the National Security Adviser, the Chief of Staff to the President, the President of the Senate and the roof didn’t come down, but the little we (North Central) have, Deputy Senate President, is taken away.
“We will abide by the party, but the party has to put in mind that this is a voluntary thing. Membership of a party is voluntary but my principles and our principles are not voluntary. It is what we are built of and we can stand by that.
“This injustice, we need to correct it. We have six geopolitical zones. The President is from Southwest, we have a Vice President for Northeast. We have the office of Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker and Deputy Speaker. It is only fair to throw this out to the other four geopolitical zones”, according to Sani Musa.