According to This Day sources deep in the APC, the party which won the March 28, presidential election and secured majority seats in both the Senate and House of Representatives has three political blocs within.
These blocs are said to be: the Buhari/Northern bloc which is made up of the president-elect and his supporters who have been with him for 12 years and collapsed their structures into the APC during the merger process; the Tinubu/South-west bloc led by the former Lagos state governor, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu; and the former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors who decamped to APC in 2013, led by the Rivers state governor, Chibuike Amaechi, and Senator Bukola Saraki.
The battle for political positions is now being championed by these three blocs.
The Tinubu bloc is said be behind the Senate minority leader, Senator George Akume, for the office of the Senate president, while the Amaechi bloc is pushing hard for the emergence of Saraki.One source deep in the camp revealed that Akume has the backing of Tinubu and his group, which is believed to be the strongest bloc in the party, but may not have the numbers in the Senate to push through their goal. The bloc has three reasons why they want Akume in the position. First, the source said that Akume has been with Tinubu’s group since its days in the ACN, culminating in his emergence as the Senate minority leader. Second, he said Akume is senior to Saraki in the Senate, having been in the Senate since 2007 while Saraki became a senator in 2011. Third, the source said Tinubu and his men understand Akume far better than Saraki who he said is not close to the bigwigs in the group as is Akume. “The Tinubu group is backing Akume because Saraki seems to be more or less an outsider (to the group). Besides, Akume has long been in ACN and he is a senior to Saraki. He is also better understood by Asiwaju than Saraki,” the source said. We also learnt that one other factor not in Saraki’s favour is his tribe as a Yoruba man, though geographically located in Kwara in North-central Nigeria.
