Politics
Akpabio, Kalu, others begin battle for Senate presidency, Nnamani may join
Aspirants for the top Senate and House of Representatives positions are expected to start declaring interest in their choice positions once the National Assembly resumes from election break on March 14.
Apart from the senate presidency, other positions that will be filled include the speaker of the House of Representatives and deputy senate president as well as the principal offices.
The principal officers are leaders of the majority and minority caucuses, which are largely based on membership configuration in a chamber.
They include the majority leader, deputy majority leader, majority or chief whip, the deputy whip, minority leader, deputy minority leader, minority whip and deputy minority whip. These 10 men and women steer the affairs of each of the Senate and the House.
According to the parliamentary tradition, ranking members – lawmakers serving two or more terms form the leadership of the parliament.
The INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed at a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners in Abuja on Saturday that the Senators-elect would receive their certificates of return on Tuesday, while their House of Representatives counterparts would get theirs on Wednesday.
So far, according to the INEC chair, the All Progressives Congress won 57 senatorial seats, the Peoples Democratic Party won 29, the Labour Party got six, while the New Nigeria Peoples Party and Social Democratic Party got two each.
On the other hand, the All Progressives Grand Alliance and Young Progressive Party got one seat each.
In the House of Representatives, the APC garnered 162 from the 360 seats, PDP got 102, LP, 34 seats, NNPP 18, APGA four, SDP and ADC got two each, while YPP won one seat.
Findings indicated that lobbying for the principal offices had begun in earnest with the parties and the senators-elect working to prevent a repeat of the 2015 experience where Senator Bukola Saraki was elected as the Senate president.
A majority of the APC senators, including the party’s preferred candidate, Ahmed Lawan were at a meeting with the APC leadership and the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) when Saraki was elected unanimously by the 57 senators present at the session.
Notable individuals who have shown interest in being president of the 10th Senate include Senators-elect Ali Ndume (Borno South), Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), Orji Uzoh Kalu (Abia), Jibrin Barau (Kano) and Mohammed Sani Musa (Niger), among others.
Ndume, who contested for the presidency of the 9th Senate against Danjuma Goje and Lawan, confirmed on Sunday that he was also in the race for the leadership of the red chamber.
He stated, “Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), Orji Uzoh Kalu (Abia), Jibrin Barau (Kano) and Mohammed Sani Musa (first-timer from Niger) have contacted me on the post.
“I am reliably informed that Abdulaziz Yari (first-timer from Zamfara) is also interested, but he has not contacted me. But you should know that I am also in the race; so place preference on me in your report,” the ranking Senator said jokingly.
He said there could be more, but noted that those he mentioned were the ones who had expressed interest in the position.
When contacted, Barau told our correspondent that he was in the race. “Yes, I am in the race. I am contesting the Senate Presidency. Wish me well. “
In his response, Kalu’s media Aide, Emeka Nwala said that his principal was interested in the Senate Presidency but was testing the waters.
He said, “Let’s wait and see how they want to zone it. My principal is interested. Who wouldn’t have an interest, everyone has an interest in it. We are just waiting to see how the zoning would go.”
Also, the media aide to Senator Akpabio, Ani Ekong, said he couldn’t give an emphatic answer as he had not been in touch with his principal since the conclusion of the senatorial election.
However, the media aide to Lawan, Ola Awoniyi said he wasn’t aware of such moves by his superior.
The media aide to the Senator representing Osun East, in Osun State, Mr Sam Progress, said no one had contacted his principal, Senator Francis Fadahunsi.
He however said that based on pre-election arrangements of the ruling party, the next senate president may come from the South-East.
According to him, “Those interested in becoming President of the Senate may want to wait till after all postponed elections are held before they come out fully. But officially, no one has contacted him (Fadahunsi).”
But a source close to a Senator-elect from Osun State, who preferred anonymity, said “a former governor from the South-East eyeing the seat of the senate president had contacted our newly elected lawmaker.”
Although another source mentioned a former Edo State governor and senator-elect, Adam Oshiomhole as one of those interested in the plum position, his media aide, Victor Oshioke said there were no such moves.
He said, “You can’t even begin to talk about lobbying for the position as the senate has not been inaugurated. Also, the certificate of return will be given to them on Tuesday so we have to wait and see.’’
From Enugu Senator Chimaroke Nnamani will be hoping to join the race if he wins the Enugu East Senate election on Saturday.
Speaking with our correspondent on the race for the principal positions, the Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Ibrahim Abdullahi said elected members of the National Assembly drawn from other parties were already holding talks on possible defection to the PDP to erase the APC’s majority seats in the parliament.According to Abdullahi, no fewer than 15 members-elect have been holding talks with the party, adding that the picture would become clearer in about two weeks.
He said, “Who gets what at the National Assembly would depend on the majority seats. For now, the APC is in the majority but we are in a meeting with members-elect of other parties and there is likely to be cross-carpeting.
“Many of them are coming to us to enable us to counter APC numbers that have just been elected. Fifteen of them are speaking with the PDP but until the end of next week, it won’t be very clear. The governorship election next week will further determine how these talks play out.”
The deputy publicity secretary did not however reveal the identity of the parties whose elected members were interested in teaming up with the PDP.
The Director of Publicity for the APC, Bala Ibrahim, disclosed that it was too early to start talking about the battle for the Senate presidency.
He noted, “I don’t understand how anyone can name a child without first giving birth. I think we should think of constituting the 10th Assembly before we talk about the composition of the leadership. Let us get to the bridge before we cross it.”
When reminded about the intrigue that led to the emergence of Saraki as Senate president in 2015, Ibrahim stated that there was no cause for alarm.
“Certainly, there are plans. But the leadership tussle can only come after the inauguration of the new assembly. The assembly inauguration itself cannot happen until the swearing-in of the president. When you don’t have a president for the new assembly, you only have the president-elect and assembly members-elect.
‘’So, you don’t talk about the strategy that you are going to put on the leadership. It is just like asking who is going to be the Secretary of the Government and you want names when the government has not been formed,” he said.
He lampooned the opposition parties for vying for the principal positions in the National Assembly while at the same time claiming that the election was fraught with rigging.
Ibrahim asked, “How do we reconcile the race for Senate presidency when you claimed the elections were rigged? When you say one side of your chest is itching and the other side is not. Now you want an X-ray on only one part which you don’t feel comfortable with. That cannot be.’’
Also speaking, Rufus Aiyenigba, the National Publicity Secretary of the Social Democratic Party said the newly elected lawmakers had paid a familiarisation visit to the party’s headquarters.
He confirmed that the SDP lawmakers would vie for the leadership positions of the 10th Assembly when the time comes.
Speaking further, he stated, “Surely, the SDP will be vying for the positions of principal officers, particularly in the Senate, because of the advantage of ranking status and experience of our two Senators-elect.
‘’Senator Goddiya Akwashiki is a returning Senator (Second-termer), while Hon. Aliyu Ahmed Wadada is bringing his wealth of experience to the Senate, having previously served as a ranking member of the House of Representatives.”
A former Kano State Governor and leader of the Kwankwasiyya Movement, Rabiu Kwankwaso, says northern political leaders conducted a deliberate assessment of potential allies before settling on Peter Obi as the most capable partner to prosecute the 2027 presidential campaign.
He dismissed concerns about a hidden power struggle between his camp and Obi’s.Politics
Kwankwaso made the disclosure in an interview on Arise TV on Monday, offering one of his most detailed accounts yet of how the North-Southeast political alliance within the NDC was formed.
“I looked around together with our leadership in the north to say, okay, who do we think is capable? Who can come and work together with us honestly so that we can move this country? Along the line, we realised that Peter Obi is at the forefront of it. That’s why we all accepted to work together,” he said.Political candidate profile
Kwankwaso, a two-term former governor of Kano State and the presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party in 2023, leads the Kwankwasiyya movement, a grassroots political force with deep loyalty across Kano and parts of northern Nigeria.Nigeria travel guide
He left the NNPP amid internal disputes before joining the NDC alongside Obi earlier this month.
Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, ran on the Labour Party platform in 2023 and drew massive youth-driven support across the South and urban centres, though he did not win.
Both men formally joined the NDC on Sunday, May 3, defecting from the crisis-hit African Democratic Congress.Politics
At the party’s national convention on Saturday in Abuja, Kwankwaso backed the NDC’s decision to zone its 2027 presidential ticket to the South, describing it as a step toward fairness, healing and national cohesion.
Responding to a question about whether the alliance concealed a quiet rivalry between both camps, Kwankwaso argued that friction between principals and their deputies was a product of greed, not structural tension.
“The problem people are having, especially leaders, is that they are too greedy to the extent that they begin to have issues. There is so much to do. You don’t have to fight your deputy,” he said.
He said his record as a former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, and later as governor of Kano State, showed that political partnerships could hold under pressure.
“I had an opportunity to work with my speaker and we worked very well. I was in Kano for eight years despite the difficulty of my then deputy governor. We were able to work for eight years amicably to the extent that I handed over to him,” he said.
Kwankwaso extended the argument beyond his personal experience, saying the same principle applied at the federal level.
In the Senate and other places, in the NDDC, we worked amicably with people. There is so much to be done and that’s why you have even ministers, other executives, advisors and so on. I don’t see from my experiences of the past why deputies or vice would fight with the president or governor,” he said.
He grounded the alliance in Nigerian political history, tracing a lineage of productive North-Southeast partnerships from the first republic to the present.Nigeria travel guide
“Right from the beginning, this sort of alliance has been in existence. Now we are going back to what Tafawa Balewa did during their time,” he said.
He also referenced the collaboration between former Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa and leaders of the NCNC, as well as that of former President Shehu Shagari and his vice president, Alex Ekwueme, in the second republic.
“So also in the second republic, immediately after the war, our leaders, Shagari and others, worked very closely with the southeast, with Alex Ekwueme as his vice president. They are our friends. We want to work together with them,” he said.Politics
Kwankwaso also noted that subsequent administrations had shifted power-sharing away from the South-East, a pattern he suggested the current alliance was correcting.
“There was a change during the third republic where for many obvious reasons an election was annulled and the government under the military decided to bring in Shonekan from the South-West.
Even after that, the military and other leaders worked together and brought in Chief Olusegun Obasanjo from the South-West again. Even Bola Tinubu probably is a beneficiary of all that,” he said.
He was emphatic that the choice of Obi was not driven by regional sentiment alone.
“It wasn’t just because we are going to the South-West just because of the South-West. No. We realised that Peter Obi is at the forefront of it and that’s why we all accepted to work together,” he said.Political candidate profile
The movement of both men into the NDC has triggered a wave of defections, with senators, House of Representatives members and political blocs aligned with their former coalition gravitating toward the new party, rapidly reshaping calculations ahead of the 2027 elections.
The alliance pairs Kwankwaso’s northern grassroots structure and disciplined voter mobilisation with Obi’s national youth engagement and urban electoral momentum, positioning the NDC as one of the main opposition platforms set to challenge President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress in 2027
Former Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso has dismissed suggestions that his exit from the African Democratic Congress has created a damaging split in the opposition.
He said he and Atiku Abubakar may yet work together before the 2027 general election.
Kwankwaso spoke in an interview on Arise TV on Monday, responding to concerns that his move to the Nigeria Democratic Congress alongside Peter Obi had effectively divided the opposition into two competing blocs ahead of the polls.
“Now, we may still work together before the election. I personally, and I think even Obi himself, decided to leave ADC not because we are fighting with Atiku or anybody there. We decided to leave that party because we realised that there are some issues,” he said
He said the ADC was contending with three major unresolved problems that he believed would make it difficult for the party to field candidates, without specifying what those issues were.
“Whether they will be able to field candidates in that party or not is just a matter of time. It’s not like we had a primary election,” he said
The remarks come after Atiku recently claimed on Arise TV that Kwankwaso’s popularity was confined to Kano State and further divided there by Governor Abba Yusuf.
Atiku, who is seeking the presidency on the ADC platform, also described himself as the most popular politician of northern extraction, saying none of his contemporaries, including Kwankwaso, Aminu Tambuwal and Nasir El-Rufai, commanded a voter base across the North as wide as his.
Kwankwaso did not engage the slight directly, but made clear he bore no grudge.
“Politics is just like a game. I’m not fighting anybody and I’m not expecting anybody to fight me. I have no issue with that. I think we are past that level now,” he said.
He challenged those predicting a vote split in Kano to wait for the election result before drawing conclusions.
“Let’s wait for the election and see whether votes are split in Kano or not,” he said.
Kwankwaso also acknowledged a history of working with Atiku, recalling that he served as the former vice president’s northern coordinator during the 2019 presidential election.
“There was an election in 2019 in Port Harcourt. He won the election. I was his coordinator for the north. We worked for him,” he said.
He traced his broader relationship with Atiku to the 2015 APC presidential primary in Lagos, where he placed second behind Muhammadu Buhari, with Atiku third.
By Okey Maduforo, Awka
The Anambra State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has expelled 30 members of the party for instituting legal actions against the party.
The affected members include some aspirants for the National Assembly, and their expulsion may disqualify them from participating in the party’s primary elections.
Disclosing this shortly after the meeting of the State Executive Committee (SEC) of the party, the State Publicity Secretary, Dr. Sir Valentine Iyiegbu, told reporters that the decision was in line with Section 21, Subsection 5 of the party’s constitution.
“The party discussed those who took the party to court, and many of them are contesting for the House of Representatives tickets of the party,” he said.
“The matter comes up tomorrow, and the SEC stated that what the party constitution stipulates would be followed, which is outright expulsion from the party under Article 21, Subsection 5.”
“The SEC actually ratified their expulsion because they did not exhaust all the internal avenues provided by the party to resolve their grievances,” he added.
Iyiegbu noted that the only reprieve available to the expelled members would be for them to withdraw their court cases.
“It is only when the matters are withdrawn from the court that the party can consider listening to them,” he said.
Speaking on the party’s primary elections, he explained:
“In the case of those contesting for the tickets of the Federal House of Representatives, all the eleven positions have aspirants, while for the Senate, the three positions are also being contested. The screening committees were here to perform their duties,” he noted.
The party also ratified the appointment of a five-man Primary Elections Committee headed by Sir Izuchukwu Okeke, the State Organising Secretary of the party.
By PETRUS OBI
Frontline aspirant for the Aninri/Awgu/Oji-River Federal Constituency seat, Anayo Onwuegbu, has successfully completed the screening exercise conducted by the All Progressives Congress House of Representatives screening panel in Abuja ahead of the party primaries scheduled for Friday, May 15, 2026.
Speaking after the exercise, Onwuegbu expressed satisfaction with the screening process, describing it as a reflection of the party’s commitment to internal democracy, transparency, and credible leadership selection ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The aspirant, who is seeking to represent Aninri/Awgu/Oji-River Federal Constituency under the platform of the APC, stated that he remains focused and prepared to continue to offer quality representation to the people of the constituency.
According to him, “The process once again highlights our party’s commitment to internal democracy, transparency, and the emergence of credible leadership as we prepare for the 2027 general elections.”
He reaffirmed his dedication to the development of the constituency, pledging to serve the people with commitment and purpose if elected.
The APC House of Representatives primaries are expected to hold nationwide on Friday as aspirants battle for the party’s tickets ahead of the 2027 elections.
By Okey Maduforo, Awka
Ten communities that make up Anaocha Local Government Area of Anambra State are set for a showdown with their traditional rulers following the alleged suspension of the zoning arrangement for the Anambra State House of Assembly elections.
Recall that on April 7, 2022, the traditional rulers, in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), resolved that the House of Assembly seats for Anaocha I and Anaocha II constituencies would rotate among the ten communities, with each town occupying the seat for two terms.
The traditional rulers further resolved that the rotation would subsist irrespective of the political party through which lawmakers emerge, noting that the arrangement was aimed at ensuring that all ten communities have the opportunity to produce members of the State Assembly in the interest of equity and fairness.
However, the Anaocha Equity Forum, shortly after its meeting, expressed concern over the alleged suspension of the zoning arrangement.
Speaking, the Convener of the Anaocha Equity Forum, Mr. Valentine Okoye, said the forum would not take kindly to what it described as acts capable of destabilising the council area, adding that any such move would be resisted.
“This is a Memorandum of Understanding signed by our traditional rulers, and it has been respected until now. We in the Anaocha Equity Forum see this as a slap on the sensibilities of the ten communities that make up the area,” he said.
“We urge members of the public, political parties, and stakeholders to disregard the alleged position of the traditional rulers, as it does not represent the views and aspirations of our people.
“Our traditional rulers should be mindful of their roles as fathers of their respective communities. They should also understand that they would be held responsible for whatever backlash or consequences may arise from this recent position.
“We call on Governor Charles Soludo to call the traditional rulers to order so that the peace currently enjoyed in Anaocha Local Government Area will not be disrupted,” he stated.
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