Buhari: I’ve No Candidate For Senate President

President-elect Muhammadu Buhari

President-elect Muhammadu Buhari is not supporting any candidate for the leadership of the National Assembly.

Gen. Buhari will support “due process” in the election of the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, his spokesman said yesterday.

Mallam Garba Shehu, in a statement issued in Abuja, said Gen. Buhari was willing to work with any leader of the Senate, irrespective of what part of the country he or she hails from.

The Nation reports:

Buhari spoke of false insinuations that he was backing a particular candidate, saying: “I am prepared to work with any leaders that the House or Senate selects; it doesn’t matter who the person is or where he or she is from.

“There is due process for the selection of leaders of the National Assembly. I will not interfere in that process.”

Gen. Buhari added that Nigerians should begin to get used to no more “business as usual.

“Nigeria has indeed entered a new dispensation,” he said. “My administration does not intend to repeat the same mistakes made by previous governments.”

There is an ongoing contest for the leadership of the two chambers of the National Assembly. Gen. Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC), which controls the majority in the federal legislature, has heightened the pervading suspense as it is yet to announce the geo-political zone that will take the Senate presidency and House of Representatives Speaker.

Senators Bukola Saraki (Kwara Central), Ahmad Lawan (Yobe North) and George Akume Benue (North East) are the frontrunners for Senate president.

Saraki and Akume are from North Central while Lawan is from Northeast.

In the House of Representatives, the frontrunners are Femi Gbajabiamila (Lagos), Abdulmumin Jibrin (Kano), Yakubu Dogara (Bauchi), Mohammed Monguno (Borno) and Pally Iriase (Edo).

Already, there are claims and counter claims on who controls the majority of followers in the Senate presidency race.

The Like Minds’ group said 65 senators have endorsed Senators Bukola Saraki and Ali Ndume from Borno State, who is also reported to be interested.

It claimed that 15 senators from the Northeast, nine from Northwest, 11 of the 18 APC senators from the Northcentral, 11 from the Southwest and 27 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senators are in The Like Minds camp, led by Senator-elect Dino Melaye, which is backing Saraki.

But another group – the Senator Ahmad Lawan Camp – yesterday faulted the claim.

A senator-elect from the Lawan camp said his group had the endorsement of 20 senators from Northwest, 12 Senators from Southwest and two from Yobe State.

He added that “even PDP Senators have now queued up behind Lawan”

Said the source: “In the Eighth Senate, we want to select our own leaders. The party will have an input but it is important to select someone with integrity, experience and a transparent leader.”

There are indications that the Southeast caucus is split into two camps. Some senators-elect from the zone may have decided to jettison an earlier plan to make the Southeast produce the deputy Senate president.