Former lawmaker, representing Kaduna Central, Senator Shehu Sani said, if proper consultations are not done by the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC and President Bola Tinubu, the 2015 scenario is bound to happen again.
Sani stated this while speaking in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday.
He said, “I have no doubt that from now to Monday if there is no serious consultation, appeasement and horse-trading, one thing I know very well is that if the APC goes to the floor without putting its house in order the 2015 scenario will reenact itself especially if there is a secret voting.”
According to Sani, the lack of proper consultations by the former President Muhammadu Buhari contributed to the former Senate President Bukola Saraki’s emergence in 2015 instead of Senator Ahmad Lawan, the preferred candidate of the President.
The former Kaduna lawmaker said, “If you go back to 2015, one of the mistakes that President Buhari made was that he never consulted the Senators-elect when it comes to the issue of his candidate, he simply wants Lawan to be Senate President without consultations.
“As the president of the country, you have a lot of leverage, there is no way a president will invite Senators-elect many of whom are coming for the first time and say this is the person I want to work with, I need your support and I want you to support him, I mean 99 percent of them will accede to it.
“But if you simply go into a room and decide that out of 109 that it is one person who you believe will be loyal to you and others will not be and you are also doubting the sincerity, loyalty and solidarity of others, you are going to have a problem with others,” he said.
Sani, however, warned the APC to put its house in order on the choice of the leadership of the 10th National Assembly (NASS).
Recall that the APC’s candidates lost out during the election of the leadership of the 8th NASS in 2015 when Saraki and Yakubu Dogara emerged as Senate President and Speaker respectively, as against the APC choices.
*Text, except headline, courtesy: VANGUARD
