- I am most experienced,high ranking for the job.
As the race for the next Senate
Presidency gradually gathers
momentum, one of the front
runners for the exalted office, Barau
Jibrin (Kano North) has declared
that those flying religious and
other sentiments campaigns won’t fly.
Barau stated this when he spoke with journalists in Abuja Wednesday as he unfolded his ambition, “I want to
tell you that I want to seek to be
President of the 10th Senate of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“In the next few days I want to
start my campaign to be the President of the 10th Senate by the grace of God.”
Barau apparently spoke against
the backdrop of what Senator Orji
Uzor Kalu, another aspirant to that
exalted office, who spoke against
having a Muslim Senate President
since the President-elect and the
Vice President -elect are both Muslims.
He said “the legislature is a
distinct arm of government that
doesn’t work on sentiments; it
works on the ability to do the job. It
is the tradition all over the world. It
is there in our rules, which is a product of the constitution. Section 60
gives the latitude to the National Assembly to create means of regulating summoning, recess of both chambers.
“That gives us the reason why we have our standing rules. It is clear in the Senate rules that aspiration or election for the office of the Senate President shall be in accordance with ranking.
“Among those who are aspiring to
that office as we speak, I have the
highest ranking. So, it is constitutional. Among those who have shown interest, I’m the most experienced. The issue is that of competence. You need to be grounded in the procedure of legislation before you can be President of Senate.
There are rules and regulations of how
we do our activities here, you need
to be knowledgeable, grounded in
them. That is the tradition all over
the world.
“As we speak, I’m number one
among those who have shown
interest. So, do you now relegate
competence for other sentiments?
We can’t do that. You will remember the time that the Senate President, David Mark,was a Christian, the deputy was a Christian, Ike Ekweremadu and then the Speaker, Patricia Ette was a Christian.
That was because they were the highest ranking at that time. That is the tradition.
“Do we now relegate competence to the background? It is not possible. And if we go to the other sentiment, in 2015 when Buhari was declared president, he tried
to give attention to the areas that
voted for him. He came from North
West and the South West had the
Vice President and Speaker and
North East, he wanted Ahmed Lawan to be President of Senate because he was the highest ranking senator among those who wanted to Senate President that time.
Later he took SGF to that area in
order to reward those who voted
for him .
“Here, if you are talking of sentiment, even North West deserves to
be given Senate President because
we gave the president the highest
votes and we want our president
to go for a second term because
we saw what he did in Lagos. He
transformed Lagos to become an
economic Eldorado.
“We want him to replicate that
for the entire country. He was able
to do that because he served two
terms. We want to give him more
votes in 2027 than what we gave
him in the just concluded election.
You need to reward performance,
so religious sentiment won’t fly.