By Haruna Salami
As the race for the next Senate presidency gradually gathers momentum, one of the front runners for
the exalted office, Barau Jibrin (Kano North) has declared that those trying religious and other
sentiments won’t fly.
Barau who spoke with journalists in Abuja Wednesday seized the opportunity to say “I want to tell you
that I want to seek to be President of the 10th Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“In the next few days I want to start my campaign to be the President of the 10 th Senate by the grace of
God.
Barau apparently spoke against the backdrop of what Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, another aspirant to that
exalted office, who spoke against having a Muslim Senate President since the President-elect and the
Vice President -elect are both Muslims.
He said “the legislature is a distinct arm of government that doesn’t work on sentiments; it works on the
ability to do the job. It is the tradition all over the world. It is there in our rules, which is a product of the
constitution. Section 60 gives the latitude to the National to create means of regulating summoning,
recess of both chambers.
“That gives us the reason why we have our standing rules. It is clear in the Senate rules that aspiration or
election for the office of the Senate President shall be in accordance with ranking.
“Among those who aspire to that office as we speak, I have the highest ranking. So, it is constitutional.
Among those who have shown interest, I’m the most experienced. The issue is that of competence. You
need to be grounded in the procedure of legislation before you can be President of Senate. The rules
and regulations of how we do our activities here, you need to be knowledgeable, grounded in them.
That is the tradition all over the world.
“As we speak, I’m number one among those who have shown interest. So, do you now relegate
competence for other sentiments? We can’t do that. You will remember the time that the Senate
President, David Mark,was a Christian, the deputy was a Christian, Ike Ekweremadu and then the
Speaker, Patricia Ette was a Christian. That was because they were the highest ranking at that time. That
is the tradition.
“Do we now relegate competence to the background? It is not possible. And if we go to the other
sentiment, in 2015 when Buhari was declared president, he tried to give attention to the areas that
voted to him. He came from North West and the South West had the Vice President and Speaker and
North East, he wanted Ahmed Lawan to be President of Senate because he was the highest ranking
senator among those who wanted to Senate President that time. Later he took SGF to that area in order
to reward those who voted for him .
Here, if you are talking of sentiment, even North West deserves to be given Senate President because
we gave the president the highest votes and we want our president to go for a second term because we
saw what he did in Lagos. He transformed Lagos to become an economic Eldorado. We want him to
replicate that for the entire country. He was able to do that because he served two terms. We want to
give him more votes in 2027 than what we gave him in the just concluded election. You need to reward
performance, so religious sentiment won’t fly.
