Former Minister of Information, Prince Tony Momoh, on Monday, said the South-East have no right to claim exclusive right to the position of Senate Presidency, saying the South-South and other regions also have claims to it.

Speaking in a chat with Daily Independent, Momoh, one of the national leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), said the South East invested more votes in Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) than they did for the APC and its candidate, President Muhammadu Buhari.

He also argued that the South-South can also lay claim to the position of Senate Presidency as it gave more votes to the APC than the South East in the presidential election.

He said “Must it be South- East alone? What of South-South? I am from the South-South. If you are talking of zoning and then there is zoning of Senate Presidency, why not South-South? All the South-South zones gave the President at least 25 per cent”.

“And I can claim that we gave the president more votes than the South- East. Zoning a particular position to a particular area is a decision that people should accommodate”.

Momoh also said he was in support of the decision of the APC to zone the position of Senate President to the North while that of the Speaker House of Representatives should be zoned to the South-West.

“If it is going to the North-East, it means the party has deliberated upon it and they have their reason why it should go to the North- East. The President is from the North-West. The President of the Senate will come from the North-East. The Speaker of the House will come from the South- West and so on”.

“So, it is natural for somebody to say the position of Senate presidency should go to the South- East but I am also saying that it can go to the South-South. The South- East can’t eat their cake and have it because they invested more in PDP than APC”.

“I am not saying they shouldn’t be given, I am only saying they there are reasons why certain decisions are taken. Under PDP, there was a time the position was zoned to the South- East and about four senators from South East became Senate president within the space of five years” he said.

•Sourced from a Daily Independent report

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