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From Fred Itua, Abuja
Many senators elected on the platforms of opposition political parties, on Wednesday night in Abuja, resolved to frustrate a bid by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, to impose former Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal, as Senate minority leader.
The ‘revolting’ senators said Atiku’s bid to impose Tambuwal on them would be resisted the same way many PDP lawmakers fought against the emergence of Godswill Akpabio as Senate president, who they claimed was foisted on them by the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Based on an unofficial instruction from the leadership of the PDP, a substantial number of opposition senators voted for Senator Abdullazeez Yari during the contest for the Senate’s top job.
Three PDP senators, one from Rivers State, another from the North and a ranking senator from the South West told newsmen after the meeting late Wednesday night expressed their readiness to support any person other beside Tambuwal.
The group of lawmakers are insisting that Tambuwal has a record of throwing his political allies under the bus at critical moments to promote his selfish interest and lacks the capacity to provide the needed leadership to them as minority leader.
The senators at the meeting, said they resolved to support any ranking senator other than the former Sokoto State governor.
They said with what Tambuwal did against the PDP, he would use the minority leadership position to negotiate and apologise to President Bola Tinubu who he betrayed after making him Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2011.
The senators claimed that Tambuwal whose regime has come under scrutiny in Sokoto State is on a mission to use the minority leadership position to negotiate for self preservation and use the platform to run for presidential election in 2027.
“Because of his inconsistency, unreliable nature and slippery character, both President Tinubu and Akpabio have made it clear to senators close to them that on no account should he be supported.
“As a result of his antecedents, senator are rejecting calls by PDP officials and their governors insisting that Tambuwal is no option,” a senator said.
Another source said: “You can trace the major political activities of Tambuwal for the past one decade? Do you really think such a politician who cannot be trusted should be handed such a key position? He seems to have a record of treachery and betrayal of close friends and allies as he did to Goodluck Jonathan, Nyesom Wike, Tinubu himself and several others. In 2019, he went against his party, the PDP, and a sitting president to rubbish the PDP zoning arrangements just because it favored him; he always plays to ethnic and religious card when it favors him.
“When he became speaker with the support of opposition elements (that is Tinubu, Muhammadu Buhari and other leaders), he used the platform of speakership to effectively rubbish the presidency of Johnathan and the PDP and decamped/abandoned the party that made it possible and moved the APC and negotiated to be governor. Buhari, Tinubu, Wamako and others rewarded him for his treachery against the PDP but his ambition could not be accommodated so he betrayed Wamako, Tinubu, Buhari and aligned with Atiku and came back to PDP with the APC mandate that was given to him with the hope of running for presidency.
“Wike against all odds backed him and promised to deliver the presidential nomination to him but thank God that did not succeed. In 2021, he again went for a presidential visit but this time did not get Wike’s support. He then betrayed Wike finally instead of supporting him to reward him for his loyalty in the primaries. This is the record of the politician Atiku wants to foist as minority leader on the party.
“Also, his senatorial election in Sokoto is now being contested; he was desperate to come to the Senate with the ambition that he would be rewarded with the position of the senate president.
“When it emerged that the PDP did not get majority and with the defeat of Atiku and Okowa, Atiku and the PDP then changed their plan to make him minority leader to compensate him.
“This explains why the PDP and other opposition senators are rejecting him saying that he has an antecedent of treachery and betrayal and placing ambition over party, friendship and anything else and that kind of person is not going to have their support.”
