Akpabio, Jibrin elected Senate president, deputy

The Akwa Ibom senator and former governor of the state, Godswill Akpabio, has been elected the president of the 10th Senate.

Barau Jibrin, who represents Kano, was elected deputy Senate president on Tuesday.

Mr Akpabio’s emergence is a major victory for the ruling All Progressives Congress, which nominated and backed the two lawmakers, but faced a robust opposition from some of its members who preferred Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara state as Senate president.

The party said its push was aimed at dousing a lingering discontent over the emergence of a rare same-faith presidency of President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima, both Muslims.

Those in support of Mr Yari argued that the National Assembly, as an independent arm of government, should be allowed to pick its leaders. They also raised the point that Mr Yari’s North-west zone gave the Tinubu-Shettima ticket the largest chunk of votes.

As the election date approached, the contest increasingly assumed a religious pitch.

On Sunday, desperate to rally support for Mr Akpabio, a former Niger Delta minister and Senate minority leader for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, Vice President Shettima invoked a controversial comparison of the faiths, and said he was willing to “kneel down” for senators to abide by the party’s directive.

“Here we are with a Muslim President and a Muslim Vice President in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious polity like ours. Number 1, 2; all of the same faith for God sake!” Mr Shettima was quoted by Daily Trust as saying.

“Under the current dispensation, the worst, the most incompetent Southern Christian is better than the most puritanical Northern Muslim for the Presidency of the Senate,” he added.

– Not outmanoeuvred

The election opened early on Tuesday. Voting started at 08:45am, leaving little room for any of the sides to be outmanoeuvred as happened during the 2015 election of Bukola Saraki.

Mr Akpabio scored 63 votes against Mr Yari’s 46.

Mr Akpabio is succeeding Ahmad Lawan, the Yobe lawmaker who contested for the APC’s presidential ticket but lost to Mr Tinubu in 2022.

Mr Jibrin was declared winner without voting as he had no opposition.

In his first speech, Mr Akpabio said he was ready to work with Mr Yari and he assumed that “all senators voted for me.”

He said the Senate will provide “serious oversight” of the executive arm.

“We’ll carry out very serious oversight functions. We’ll put members of the executive on their toes,” he said.