There is growing opposition against Aminu Tambuwal, senator representing Sokoto south, in his bid for the position of senate minority leader.
Some lawmakers have been lobbying their parties and caucuses to be appointed as principal officers, since the election of presiding officers in June.
The majority and minority caucuses of the House of Representatives and senate often collaborate with the leadership of political parties to choose principal officers.
The offices up for grabs are majority leader, deputy majority leader, whip, deputy whip, minority leader, deputy minority leader, minority whip, and deputy minority whip.
While some of the leaders under the aegis of Citizens Network for Peace and Development in Nigeria, CNPDN, rejected moves by certain elements to Tambuwal as minority leader of the 10th Senate, another group, the Generation Next Collective, GNC, said those opposed to Tambuwal were external forces trying to hijack the minority leadership of the Senate, in order to hurt the integrity and independence of the legislature.
The leaders of the CNPDN, who are mainly kinsmen of former President Goodluck Jonathan, apart from rejecting Tambuwal as Senate minority leader alleged that some aggrieved senators were planning to create a crisis in the upper chamber.
Fingering Tambuwal, the political leaders described him as a “desperate and serial political betrayer,” who frustrated President Goodluck Jonathan as President and betrayed Tinubu in 2011 after he emerged Speaker of the House of Representatives.”
“We totally reject the scheming of Tambuwal and co, geared towards high-jacking the leadership of the minority parties in the Senate for selfish and destructive purposes. Tambuwal should not be allowed to emerge as the minority leader of the Senate because of his antecedents of selfish and acrimonious politics,” said the leaders who spoke through the National Secretary of the Forum, Francis Okereke Wainwei.
They said Tambuwal and some senators are trying to recreate the acrimonious relationships between the National Assembly and the Executive that rocked the boat of governance in the past, and which greatly slowed down governance and negatively affected the effectiveness of those administrations.
The leaders however called for calm, but vowed to expose the lawmakers if they continue to push their threats.
Even though Tambuwal, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, is a ranking member and is eligible for the senate minority leader position, he is not the preferred choice of some of his colleagues in the minority parties and some parliamentary stakeholders.
