Zoning Senate Presidency to S/East will promote peace in Nigeria, Kalu tells Buhari

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* Wants President to take APC’s BoT chair after office

By Mathew Dadiya, Abuja

Chief Whip of the Senate, Orji Uzor Kalu has met President Muhammadu Buhari to officially inform him of his intention to run for the position of the Senate President, emphasizing that if the position is zoned to the South East by the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) it would stimulate peace in the country.

Kalu, a former governor of Abia State argued that though the zone may not have voted for Asiwaju Tinubu, the President-elect, at the recently concluded Presidential election, making him the Senate President would bring peace and honour to the country.

The lawmaker who spoke with State House Correspondents after the meeting on Tuesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, also disclosed that he discussed the stability of the ruling party with the President.

He said he suggested to the President to take over the position of the APC”s Board of Trustees (BoT) immediately after handing over to the President-elect later in the year

He explained: “There’s one thing I suggested to the President that I did not tell you people. I suggested to the President I said we cannot allow you to rest. I’m going to be consulting the party. The party should bring back our Board of Trustees or something that looks like it, so that Mr. President will be Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the party so that every four or five months, he will come and see how the party is doing.

“We cannot just leave the party empty, it was done in the young days of ANC so that the President will still be part of the conscience of the party so that we will have somebody to run to when we have problems in the party because it was just God that saved our party, that is the truth. God saved our party because the quarrel inside the party was so much, the rancour is so much. It’s just God that saved this party.

“So we need a man like President Buhari to be aside, every three, four months, we’ll go and drag him from Daura and he will settle party matters, we’ll put him back, he goes back there and continues looking after his cattle and rice and all the rest of them

“I’m not yet ready to look after my palm kernel, I have more time to go before I start going to look after my palm kernel.”

The senator noted that the ruling party was faced with serious crises ahead of the just concluded general elections adding that Buhari’s interventions saved the APC from going under

He urged the President not to totally retire from politics but take over the leadership of the ruling party at the highest level in order to give direction.