APC retreat may serve as primary for Senate leadership

A number of Senators on Friday suggested that the APC may be planning to conduct a sort of primary exercise today (Saturday) in its effort to pick candidates for the Senate leadership in the 8th Senate, having dumped zoning.

A two-day retreat put together by the party’s leadership for all the APC senators-elect at a private hotel in the Apo District, Abuja, to create avenues for interactions between them and their leaders, may be the avenue to achieve that aim.

Some ranking senators told Vanguard on Friday that the event would be used to conduct an open electoral process where the participants are expected to vote for their preferred candidate for the post of Senate President and Deputy Senate President.

A senator from the North-Central, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the development was creating tension among his colleagues who believed that the strategy might be used to produce candidates of some certain leaders.

However, a two-term governor of Yobe State, who is currently a ranking senator, Bukar Abba Ibrahim, described the planned retreat as a welcome development because it would create room for dialogue between the senators-elect and the party leaders.

Meanwhile, senators who are aspiring to lead the 8th Senate have changed their tactics from concentrating their campaign strategy on their colleagues instead of going after chieftains of the party, believed to have overwhelming influence on their representatives in the upper legislative chamber.

The four ranking senators who are mobilising support from their colleagues in the red chamber and among the senators-elect are Bukola Saraki, Kwara Central; George Akume, Benue North; Ahmad Lawan, Yobe North; and Ali Ndume, Borno South.

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