Ahead of Tuesday’s inauguration of the 10th National Assembly and election of presiding officers, sources revealed that there is apprehension in the camps of the two contenders as they could not prove the loyalty of the senators-elect said to be receiving bribes from both aspirants. Some senators-elect have been accused of collecting at least $5000 in bribes from the camps of both former minister, Godswill Akpabio and former governor, Abdulaziz Yari who are presently jostling for the seat of the Senate President. Ahead of Tuesday’s inauguration of the 10th National Assembly and election of presiding officers, sources revealed that there is apprehension in the camps of the two contenders as they could not prove the loyalty of the senators-elect said to be receiving bribes from both aspirants.
“The Senate Presidency may trade for between $5,000 and $10,000 or even more. Some of the senators-elect have started playing a double game, collecting dollars from the two contending camps and signing up for them,” a source in the Senate Chamber told Nigerian Tribune.
The source added that some of the senators-elect who professed to be working for Akpabio who is the anointed candidate of the All Progressives Congress leadership also attend nocturnal meetings of the main rival and senator-elect for Zamfara West, Abdul-Aziz Yari. The source revealed that some of the lawmakers who appended their signatures to the list of Akpabio supporters had also pledged loyalty to the camp of Senator Yari.
“I don’t know what is happening on the other side but I am aware that some people who claim to be with us have also signed for Yari. I am saddened that senators are selling signatures for between $5,000 and $10,000. They are not asking Yari what he has to offer; they are only interested in his money,” the lawmaker lamented. it was last week reported that President Bola Tinubu’s meetings with lawmakers-elect to resolve the crisis over the All Progressives Congress zoning arrangement ended in a stalemate as no agreement was reached.
The All Progressives Congress National Working Committee had micro-zoned the Senate President and the Deputy Senate President seats to Senator Godswill Akpabio from South-South and Senator Jibrin Barau from North-West, respectively. While other aspirants like Senators Abdulaziz Yari, (Zamfara West); Osita Izunaso (Imo West) and Orji Kalu (Abia North) have insisted that they would not step down for the party’s consensus candidate.
Some federal lawmakers-elect from Northern Nigeria had explained why the All Progressives Congress (APC) zoning arrangement for the leadership of the National Assembly could not stand. The lawmakers-elect in separate interviews said they were not consulted before the announcements, which signalled the President Bola Tinubu government’s disposition of trying to handpick the leaders of the National Assembly and make them rubber-stamp. However, in the meeting held on Thursday Tinubu appealed to lawmakers to uphold national interest.