Akpabio Tells Governors to Finish Their Eight Years Before Looking at Other Seats: A Man Who Wants to Keep His Own Seat Is Giving Advice About Seats

Someone is sitting comfortably in a chair, and he is telling everyone else not to look at the chairs in the room. Listen carefully, because this is the best advice you will receive this month, from a man who has never needed it.

At the inauguration of the APC campaign council in Abuja on Wednesday, Senate President Godswill Akpabio told governors: “You must not abandon your people.” Then he added that the Constitution says eight years, and he did his eight years as a governor, so everyone else should do the same. And finally the part everyone has been repeating all day: “There’s no need for you to start eyeing another position that is not available.”

Not available! When a politician says a position is not available, my friend, it means that the position is available, it is very comfortable, and he is currently sitting in it.

Let us be fair. He did not mention any name. But the reports say the message was aimed at a certain governor who is the APC senatorial candidate for Imo West and who is rumoured to be interested in the Senate presidency. Nobody has been named, of course. In Nigerian politics, when a speech has no name, everybody in the hall looks at one person’s face. That man, who is the secretary of the campaign council, said he will be on the ballot as a senatorial candidate. So the reply to “don’t look at other seats” was “I am not looking, I am standing for it.” A beautiful distinction. It is like saying, “I wasn’t eyeing the jollof rice, I was just walking towards it with a plate.”

And the speech did not stop there. Akpabio asked the President to support his own re-election as Senate President in 2027, saying the National Assembly is “with” Tinubu. So the message was: “Governors, stay in your lane. And Mr President, please keep me in mine.” This is the most honest campaign pitch of the season: first stop the others from coming, then ask for the seat.

Then he told us, “I always win, and why I always win is because I stand with people.” Nobody had asked. In this country, the louder you say you always win, the more you are checking your pockets for the result.

There is also the suggestion that people should “mend their clothes when they are not torn.” My friend, I have thought about this for two hours, and I think it means “don’t change what is working.” But it sounds like something your uncle says at a naming ceremony.

The Senate, of course, will decide who leads it. Senators, not governors, not the President. But we all know in Abuja that the vote is very democratic until someone makes a phone call.

So governors, finish your eight years. Be patient. Wait your turn. And if somebody tells you the seat is not available, ask him one thing: “Sir, are you currently sitting in it?”