From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
A member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Working Committee (NWC), Salihu Moh Lukman, has declared that any Muslim Senator-elect aspiring for Senate President is disrespectful to the leaders of the country and the party, including President Muhammadu Buhari and President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
In a statement he personally signed, Lukman noted that there are disturbing reports from House of Representatives members-elect that one aspirant for the position of Speaker from North-East apart from bribing members-elect with huge amounts of money is also offering jeeps to them if they will commit to electing him.
He wondered why the contest for the principal officers of the 10th National Assembly should be reduced to cash-and-carry, insisting that any Muslim aspiring for the position of Senate President has no respect for both the constitutions of Nigeria and the APC.
“How can anyone aspiring for position of leadership at all levels seeking to bribe his/her way be said to be interested in rendering service? Such a person will only be interested in rendering service to himself and himself alone.
“Besides, given that both the two persons allegedly involved in this cash-and-carry approach to mobilising support for their emergence as Senate President are Muslims, it will be gross insensitivity to the peaceful co-existence of the country and disrespectful to Nigerians to allow them to continue to aspire for the position of Senate President.
“In addition, any Muslim Senator-elect aspiring for the position of Senate President is disrespectful to the leaders of the country and the party, including President Muhammadu Buhari and Asiwaju Tinubu.
“However considered, the emerging risks threatening the peaceful co-existence of Nigeria, manifest, will squarely be interpreted based on the actions or inactions of the political leadership of the country in the persons of President Buhari as the current leader and Tinubu as his successor,” he noted in the statement.
“Unfolding developments around the contest for the leadership of the 10th National Assembly is quite worrisome.
Apart from the clear disregard for national unity and outright disrespect for Nigerians, especially the persons of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Kashim Shettima, being the president-elect and vice-president-elect respectively, some of the aspiring candidates for the positions of Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives are neither concerned about the security and well-being of Nigeria nor are they in anyway disturbed about factors that could erode the electoral viability of our party – APC.
“These are aspiring candidates for these positions, two of them Muslims from North-West aspiring for the position of Senate President and one of them from North-East aspiring for the position of Speaker of the House of Representatives, who are desperately mobilising support in unethical manner without any regard or respect to the party and its leadership.
“Certainly, these aspirants know that there is very high probability that once the party is allowed to finalise the processes of zoning positions of leadership, the probability is high that these positions would be zoned to other sections of the country outside theirs,” he maintained.