A former minister, Godswill Akpabio, emerged as President of the Senate during the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly last Tuesday. Tajudeen Abbas, in the House of Representatives, was also elected the speaker. They were the anointed candidates of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his political party for these positions. The election was devoid of high drama, perhaps due to the arrival of Akpabio’s supporters at the Assembly’s complex as early as 4 a.m. Apparently, they were in mortal dread of a recrudescence of the 2015 experience, when Senator Bukola Saraki and his supporters arrived at the national parliament earlier than others to elect him as president, against the dictates of their party.
It was a keen contest in the Senate, where Akpabio secured 63 votes to beat Abdul’Aziz Yari, who polled 46 votes. Jibrin Barau, his deputy from Kano State, was elected unopposed. In the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas literally strolled to the speaker’s seat with 353 votes, while his two other challengers, Ahmed Wase and Sani Jaji, won a consolatory three votes each. The scenario in the House somehow raises concern about the quality of opposition to expect there, despite priding on being a “Minority-in-the-Majority”, with its numerical strength of 182 members from seven political parties, as against the APC’s 181 legislators. With this, it is hoped that a virile opposition and robust debates will not be mortgaged in the House.
As smooth as Akpabio’s and Abbas’ triumphs might have been, the road to those denouements was rough. The contest draws attention once more to the crescent factors of geo-politics and religion in our brand of democracy. President Tinubu had scoffed at concern about the latter, typified in his choice of Kashim Shettima as running mate in the presidential election, in a Muslim-Muslim ticket saga. It drew flaks from within the All Progressives Congress (APC) itself and the larger society. No doubt, Tinubu did not want to pass through that seeming eye of a needle one more time. To him, a Christian must be the Senate President to assuage concerns about the dominance of one faith in the federal government.
