Exclusive: North, Southwest APC Pick Akpabio as Next Senate President, Plots a 24-year Exclusion of Southeast from Power

By Stanley Ekpenyong, South-South Breau Chief

Except miracle happens between now and the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly, the Southeast will find itself in a political wilderness, the worst since independence.

In a brazen poke into the eyes of the geo-political zone, northern and southwest power brokers in the All Progressives Congress, APC have ceded the next Senate Presidency to the South south and specifically to former Akwa Ibom Governor, Senator Godswill Akpabio.

The magazine was informed that, but for his defeat in the last senatorial election, the plumb Senate position would have landed on the laps of Cross River’s out-going Governor, Professor Ben Ayade as he was the preferred pick.

However, should Akpabio’s corruption case prove an obstacle to his ascension to the nation’s number three position in the power hierarchy, the immediate past Edo State Governor and former APC Chairman, Adams Oshomhole will step in as a substitute.

The Oshomhole angle is the reason the outgoing 9th Senate under Senator Ahmed Lawan will in few days clandestinly amend Senate rules to allow first timers to vie for its leadership positions.

The current Senate rules allow only ranking Senators to vie for principal positions.

The former Edo Governor will be a first timer in the Senate having won election in February to represent Edo North in the Senate.

While the Speaker of the House of Representatives will be produced by the North Central, the Deputy president of the Senate will be produced by the Northwest with his Deputy coming from the South west.

Out-going Kano state Governor, Ibrahim Ganduje, while on a courtesy call on Ayade Thursday, in what appears as an insight into the power brokers’ decision told his Cross River state counterpart that “we from the Northern part of the country, right from the beginning said the next president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should come from the Southern part of this country and we made our pledge a reality.

“I will now like to make another pledge; I and my colleagues have pledged that the next Senate President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria will come from the South south and he is no other person than the former governor of Akwa Ibom, Senator Godswill Akpabio; the uncommon governor, the uncommon Minister is waiting to be inaugurated as the uncommon President of the Senate”

The exclusion of the Southeast was the fallout of a secret meeting hosted by a highly placed Northern chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC ( name withheld) and attended by the party’s leaders from the North and Southwest shortly after the 2023 general election where the exercise was reviewed geo-zone by geo-zone.

At the end of the meeting, it was noted that the Southeast rejected the APC totally and massively in 2015, 2019 and 2023. It was therefore, concluded that the geo-political zone will still reject the party even if elections are held 100 times and APC contested 100 times.

The meeting further noted that even in local elections such as governorship, state and National Assembly elections in Southeast where the APC managed to win few seats, the results would have turned out differently if not for “some other means employed by our party to win”.

The Northern and Southwest APC leaders then resolved not to reward “Southeast’s rejection of our party with inclusion or with a kiss and a pat on back”

Hawkish elements at the meeting, livid with anger over Labour party Presidential candidate, Peter Obi’s audacious performance at the presidential election and his insistence that the election was rigged, proposed a 24- year uninterrupted exclusive power rotation between the North and Southwest to “demonstrate that he who has the numbers has the power”

Former Abia state Governor and the current Senate Chief Whip, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, Senator Osita Izunnaso and out-going Ebonyi state Governor, Engr. Dave Umahi are the three contenders for the President of the Senate from Southeast.

With the power brokers’ decision,  the ambitions of the three Southeast candidates may have suffered a stillborn.