yesterday distanced itself from the aspiration of Senator Ahmad Lawan
to emerge as the President of the Eighth Senate.
The caucus addressed Senate correspondents yesterday in Abuja.
Caucus leader, Senator Danjuma Goje from Gombe State, said what was
before the North east was how to persuade APC leadership to consider
the region for the "highest position in the National Assembly."
Besides, Goje said the caucus has opened channels of communication
with five other caucuses in the chamber and outside the National
Assembly as well.
His words: "The members of the North East APC Senators caucus in a
meeting held in Kaduna Room of Transcorp Hilton Hotel on April 30,
2015 with the 12 of the 13 members in attendance and one apology from
Ahmed Zanah, who was indisposed but was with us on telephone, also
concurred, which means that he was in harmony with what we discussed
yesterday.
"We resolved as follows yesterday, that I, Senator Mohammed Danjuma
Goje, from Gombe Central senatorial district, was unanimously elected
as the leader of the caucus and Senator Isa Hamamisu as the secretary
of the caucus.
"While the party leadership is considering the zoning of the National
Assembly leadership position, the caucus is appealing for the zoning
of highest position in the National Assembly to the North East
considering the special needs of this zone.
"In other words, we resolved to call the leadership of our party to
formally zone the highest office of the National Assembly to our zone
in view of our special circumstance.
"This caucus should be allowed in consultation with the party
leadership, other caucuses, zonal leaders, other stakeholders to
nominate the senator suitable to occupy such an office which is zoned
to our zone.
"For this reason, the caucus urges the public and distinguished
colleagues nationwide and indeed, everybody, Nigerians and
non-Nigerians to completely disregard any purported endorsement of any
Senator from the North East by any zone because zoning of posts by APC
has not been formally done yet.
"We are waiting for our formal zoning of the various posts of the
national assembly before we commence nomination and we believe that
any post zoned to us must have our input as the caucus and then, we
consult with other caucuses, party leadership and indeed, other
stakeholders before arriving at a decision.
"We should completely disregard any endorsement of any of our member
here or absent. We do not know anything about it, we do not support
it, we disassociate ourselves completely from it."
Senator Goje reiterated that the caucus was not in support of any
other caucus adopting or endorsing any senator from the North east for
the Senate Presidency.
"What we are saying is that we, the North East caucus, formally
disassociate ourselves from any endorsement from any other zone. Other
zones have the right to decide what they want but we in the North East
are not associating ourselves with those so-called endorsements
because the party has not zoned anything to us.
"It is after the zoning has been announced that we will sit down and
nominate our candidates that we feel are capable and suitable to
represent the zone. But we cannot stop others from doing what they
want, all we are saying is that we are not part of it. We have nobody
in mind yet, we have not decided anything because we do not know what
is coming to us. We do not want to jump the gun..." Goje affirmed.
Senators-elect at the briefing apart from Goje, were, the Secretary of
the caucus, Isa Ahmed Gusau; ( Bauchi Central); Ali Ndume ( Borno
South); Bukar Abba Ibrahim ( Yobe Central) and Abdulaziz Murtala Nyako
( Adamawa Central.
Others are, Binta Garba ( Adamawa North); Ahmed Abubakar ( Adamawa
South); Usman Bayero Nafada ( Gombe North); Abubakar Jare ( Borno
North ) and Sulyman Nazif ( Bauchi North).
The caucus' new stance on the zoning controversy in the APC is at
variance with the earlier postures of senators Goje and Garba who have
at different times indicated interest in the zone getting the deputy
senate president slot.
--Sun
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