IPAC urges APC to zone Senate Presidency to South

The Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) has urged the All Progressives Congress (APC) to zone the Senate presidency to either the South-East or South-South.

Its National Chairman, Sani Yabagi, said this when he read the communique issued after the council General Assembly meeting in Abuja, yesterday.

“To ensure federal character as enshrined in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended and ethnoreligious balancing, the senate president should be zoned to the South-East or South-South geo-political zones. The candidate that will emerge will address the required ethnoreligious balancing, in view of the fact that the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu; Vice President-elect, Alhaji Kashim Shettima and the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Olukayode Ariwoola are all of the same faith.

“This will help to restore the confidence of the people from the South-East and South-South geo-political zones and indeed all Nigerians in the unity of the country.”

Yabagi said there was historic precedence for such when Chief Olusegun Obasanjo-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration in 1999 deliberately zoned the senate presidency to the South-East.

“IPAC calls on all relevant stakeholders to embark on deliberate actions that will help to reconcile, heal and unite the nation. This will eliminate the winner takes all syndrome and further ethnoreligious inclusivity and a strong, virile, united, progressive, prosperous, equitable and just democratic nation. This is without prejudice to the ongoing Election Petitions at various election petition tribunals in the country.”

Yabagi expressed concern over the ethnoreligious sentiments that characterised the selection of presidential candidates for the 2023 general election.

“Nigerians witnessed the worst campaign since 1999 when democracy was restored in the country. IPAC is strongly determined to stop the dastardly do-or-die politics, garrison politics, ethnoreligious profiling and stomach infrastructure that have impeded our hard-earned democracy and impoverished the masses who sold their votes for a mess of electoral porridge.”

Yabagi called for more appointments of women and youth in government as the most vibrant demographic groups in the country.

He said that the continued marginalisation of women and youths in the previous and incumbent governments must stop forthwith, saying no nation made progress without the active participation of women and youth.

“Women involvement in the 2023 general election was an eloquent testimony of their preparedness to serve the fatherland and should be given the opportunity to do so.”