Ngige to be Senate President if Ekwunife cedes her mandate

The Senator elect for Anambra Central Senatorial District, Uche Ekwunife has vowed never to step down for Chris Ngige, who is also from the district, even as she rebuffed pressures being mounted on her by elders and political stakeholders in the zone to renounce her mandate for Ngige.Ekwunife, who won the Senatorial seat in the March 28, 2015 National Assembly election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), defeated Victor Umeh of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Chris Ngige of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

She was said to be under pressure to renounce the mandate for Ngige, for the purpose of having a South Easterner assuming the position of Senate President in the coming 8th Senate, as a way of balancing the political equation across the geo political zones.

Fielding questions from journalists yesterday in Abuja at the just ended 4- day induction course held for federal lawmakers-elect, Ekwunife confirmed the pressures but categorically said that she will never succumb to that.

She said: “Yes, there have been immense pressures from various quarters in the Anambra Central Senatorial Zone and by extension, Anambra State, on me to renounce the popular mandate given to me by the people of the senatorial district for somebody (Ngige) I defeated flatly for reasons of power sharing they are not even sure of. “Even if they are sure of whatever position they want the person they are pressurizing me to step down for, I will never take that from them because the mandate as far as I am concerned is far, far bigger than being sacrificed on the altar of power sharing,” she said.

Pressures mounted on Ekwunife in this regard, arose out of the political reality that none of the 15 senators elected from the South East for the coming 8th Senate, is a member of the APC, the party which senators-elect, are expected to form the leadership of the Senate, having won 60 out of the 109 seats.

The calculations of those who mounted pressures on Ekwunife to renounce her mandate for Ngige were premised on Ngige being an APC senator already and with ranking status he would have attained in the senate if allowed to return, would have been in the best position to clinch the position of Senate President, being from the zone the position was originally zoned to by the party before the general election.

It would be recalled that even the South South Geo- political zone where the party would have considered for the position after the South East, the only senator elect on the platform of APC from the zone is a first timer, a development that is making the party to be looking at the directions of North Central or North East Geo- political zones since North West and South West Geo- political zones already have the President elect and Vice President elect respectively.
source;
Peoples Daily