Posted by By Emmanuel Aziken on
The face-off between Southwest Senators and the Senate leadership over the reconstitution of Senate Committees has been settled with a gentleman agreement that the number of Committee chairmen from the zone be increased at the soonest opportunity.
ABUJA - The face-off between Southwest Senators and the Senate leadership over the reconstitution of Senate Committees has been settled with a gentleman agreement that the number of Committee chairmen from the zone be increased at the soonest opportunity.
The truce came as Senator Abiola Ajimobi who was last week chosen by the Senate to replace Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi as the Senate deputy minority whip asserted that he was not desperate for the job. Senator Ajimobi in an interview with newsmen vowed to play a central role in resolving the crisis that has recently broken out over the issue.
The truce between the Southwest Senators and the Senate leadership was reached after a meeting between the Senate leadership and the Southwest caucus leadership led by Senator Clement Awoyelu.
Sources close to the parley told Vanguard yesterday that the Southwest Senators were informed that the Senate could not go back on its decisions on the Committee changes but were promised that every opportunity to make up for the shortfall in Committee chairmanships earlier given to the zone would be properly utilized for such.
The Southwest Senators were, reportedly equally reproved for externalizing the issue.
However, before the rapprochement, sources told Vanguard yesterday that several of the Southwest Senators had moved away from opposition to the leadership with some of them pledging their respective loyalties to the Senate President and their Committee chairmen.
In his first chat with newsmen since he was elevated, Senator Ajimobi (AD, Oyo South), said "the ANPP even though the larger party within the minority caucus owed it a duty to AD Senators to allow them participate in the decision of choosing the deputy minority whip"Senator Ajimobi who yesterday made his first appearance at a Senate session since he was elevated sat on his normal seat and did not take up his position in the front seats reserved for principal officials of the Senate.
Senator Ajimobi spoke against the background of mutterings arising from the removal by the minority caucus and the Senate of Senator Afikuyomi as the deputy minority whip.
Though the action was unanimously carried out on the Senate chambers penultimate Tuesday, some AD Senators have, however, come to dissociate themselves from the action citing procedural irregularities in the removal of Senator Afikuyomi.
"We must play politics with the fear of God and those who know me from my antecedents, with my nature know that I have never, repeat lobbied for any position,".