Nigeria’s leading Parliamentary Advocacy Network (PAN), has continued its engagement with various leaders and stakeholders across the country ahead of the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly in June.

The group promotes good governance, independence of the Legislature, and equity at the National Assembly.

Already, the Parliamentary group has met with some senators-elect and a member of the House of Representatives, gunning for the Speakership.

It met with Senator Jibrin Barau, Senator Osita Izunaso, and Senator-elect, Ned Nwoko.

Izunaso, currently a candidate for Senate President, stressed the need to give all parts of the country a sense of belonging. He said that the diversity of the Nigerian nation was such that a lot of consideration ought to be given to various factors in the process of determining who gets what in the allocation of government offices.

He argued that experience, capacity, competence, and other considerations such as ethnic and religious balancing must be factored into the leadership selection process at the next National Assembly.

He also informed that he was presenting himself to his colleagues at the Senate as a loyal party man, lawyer, erstwhile journalist, and former member of the National Working Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for support to become the next President of the 10th Senate.

Also speaking on his ambition to become President of the 10th Senate, Barau from Kano State maintained that the legislature is such a special institution where experience, exposure, capacity, and an ability to navigate through the different ideas, competencies, and characters of various individuals that constitute its membership, were important in trying to determine who leads such an institution.

He specifically pointed out that some of the rules of each legislative body confer on its senior or ranking members certain advantages that exclude new members.

The former member of the Kano State Executive Council, who was, equally, at the House of Representatives in the early part of the 4th Republic, said he was in support of balancing the leadership of various government offices along regional and religious lines, but stressed that a legislative house should be treated differently.

Barau, however, added that he would gladly defer to the position of his party if, at end of the campaigns and efforts to win the Senate Presidency, it is zoned to another region.

For Nwoko, senator-elect from Delta State, it was important to state in no ambiguous terms where the position of President of the Senate ought to go in the 10th Senate.

He said the Igbo needed a sense of belonging in the Nigerian enterprise and that giving the South East region the support to occupy the leadership of the Senate would be a succor to the zone that has continued to raise in the context of their perceived marginalization in the current Nigerian political set-up.

PAN had informed their hosts of their desire to see an independent National Assembly that is capable of being on the side of the people against an overbearing Executive at all times.

The National Coordinator of the group, Sunny Anderson Osiebe, and General-Secretary, Fred Itua, informed that the group is an independent body that comprises journalists, Parliamentary workers, and rights advocates, who have spent many years at the National Assembly.

According to Osiebe, the group would, eventually, support a candidate for the President of the Senate and other Presiding Officers of the National Assembly, who fit their bill for the different positions in line with national balancing, equity, and justice.

Among the leaders of the group that participated in the engagements were Dominic Alancha, National Organising Secretary; Binta Pearl Ojoma, National Treasurer; as well as Chinedu Onyemesi, National Financial Secretary; and Nkem Anyata-Lafia, National Publicity Secretary.

The group equally said it would, in the bid to assess their individual programs for the legislature, go further to engage with other legislators-elect, Godswill Akpabio, Orji Uzor Kalu, Governor Dave Umah, I as well as others who have expressed their intentions to run for the position of President of the Senate.