How Remi Tinubu’s Deputy Senate President Ambition Was Truncated…

How Remi Tinubu’s Deputy Senate  President Ambition Was Truncated…
  • May Become Chief Whip

The saying that in failing to reach for the stars one might instead land on the moon seems to hold a kernel of truth if noises emanating from the newly inaugurated 9th Senate are to be believed. Senator Oluremi Tinubu, one of those who lost out in the battle for the two top posts in the Senate might just get the consolation prize of one of the remaining principal officers’ position yet to be settled on.

Sources disclosed that the multi-term senator representing Lagos Central is in the running for the majority leader, deputy majority speaker or chief whip positions. Though her teeming supporters, if not Tinubu herself, would surely prefer the majority speaker post, news coming out of the APC caucus indicates her prospects there are getting increasingly dim as the party has resolved to zone that post to either the North Central or South East, leaving the Chief whip position for the senators from the South West to squabble over.

By all indications, the coast is clear for her to become chief whip if she wants it. Moreover, in return for her selflessly dropping out of the picture for the other posts, she is set to be well compensated with membership in the most coveted senate committees when those are constituted. Tinubu, a ranking senator after many years in the house, will have to bid her time if she wishes to become the nation’s first female head of legislature.

No doubt, supporters of the wife of APC leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu would see it as the least the woman deserves, especially after she peacefully shelved her ambition to become deputy senate leader in the interests of party harmony. Recall that the senate eventually chose Ovie Omo-Agege from the South South region as DSP in accordance with the APC’s zoning formula.

Those in the know claimed that she could have still gone on to be DSP if the Tinubu camp had sacrificed the position of speaker of the House of Representatives. They however decided the speakership was too important a position to forfeit, leading to the emergence of Femi Gbajabiamila as speaker of the lower chamber

Meanwhile, quiet rumblings have surfaced that someone from Tinubu’s innermost circle, either his son Seyi or his wife Remi, is being positioned to become Lagos governor come 2023. The current governor is said to be “keeping the place warm” until the Tinubu dynasty can place one of their own on the throne again.

Related Articles