A Coalition of northern minority ethnic groups has urged the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its senators-elect to support the Ahmed Lawan/George Akume ticket for Senate President and Deputy Senate President.

The groups, which met in Kaduna at the weekend, described the campaign of the two senators for the Senate’s seats as the “ticket of minority groups”.

The members said they met to “consider the fate of minorities in the North under the new dispensation” and urged the party to take cognisance of the contributions of the minorities in the three geo-political zones of the North to the electoral successes recorded by the APC.

The participants at the meeting pleaded that minorities should be rewarded “by conceding the Senate Presidency slot to Lawan and Akume”.

A member of the groups said it has“become incumbent on the new administration, the party in power and all senators-elect to support Lawan from the Bade minority ethnic group of the Northeast state of Yobe to become the Senate President and George Akume of the Tiv minority tribe of the Northcentral state of Benue to be the Deputy Senate President”.

According to them, the Lawan/Akume minority ticket for the Senate Presidency race should be considered along the line of the APC presidential ticket of President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (SAN), which represents the majority tribes of Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba respectively, noting the religious sensitivity of the tickets as well.

The groups said “putting sentiments aside, going by the extant rules of the Senate, the ticket by every right should not be challenged by senators-elect since Lawan shall be the highest ranking APC senator in the Eighth Assembly followed by George Akume who is going to be a third term senator”.

They added: “All APC senators-elect particularly those of the northern ethnic minorities extractions should assists us to actualise the Ahmed Lawan /Akume ticket so that the Northern ethnic minorities will be carried along and shall be compensated for the overwhelming votes they gave to the APC in the 2015 elections.”

According to them, anything short of this Senate Presidency slot will make minority nationalities unable to guarantee their votes for the APC in 2019 elections as they will feel betrayed by the Hausa- Fulani and Yoruba.

They said the governing party should not forget that the last presidential election was about the first time in the nation’s political history that the Hausa-Fulani, the Yoruba and the Northern ethnic minorities came together politically.

“We, therefore, need to sustain this excellent political alliance and not to destroy it through lack of equity and mutual respect of one another,” the groups added.

They said they had mandated a powerful sub-committee to prevail on President Muhammadu Buhari, APC National Leaders, especially Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar as well as the National Chairman Chief John Odigie-Oyekun on their request for the “minority ticket to be supported because an ethnic majority may end up being represented in numbers two, three and four political offices at the centre”.

Another aspirant for the Senate Presidency, Senator Bukola  Saraki, at the weekend, took his campaign to Sokoto and Kebbi states.

After he visited Governor Atiku Bagudu in Birnin Kebbi, the senator called on the people to support the government “since it is the only one that can change the economic climate of the state”.

Addressing reporters after their closed door meeting, Saraki said his visit to Kebbi was “to felicitate with a good friend and colleague on the successful handover ceremony”.

He urged the people to support the governor to move Kebbi State forward.