From Fred Itua, Abuja
There are strong indications that members of the 10th House of Representatives may resist any attempt to zone the Speakership of the lower legislative chamber to the North West geopolitical zone.
This is even coming amidst intense lobbying by power brokers within the All Progressives Congress (APC) to push for a candidate from North Central.
Already, a meeting of the APC National Executive Committee (NEC), where a position will be taken on the zoning arrangement for presiding officers of both chambers of the National Assembly has been fixed for this month.
Meanwhile, key APC members from the North West, have indicated interest for the office of Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives.
From the same North West, former chairman of the House Committee on National Intelligence in the 8th Assembly, Aminu Jaji from Zamfara state; Tajudeen Abbas from Kaduna and Majority Leader of the House, Alhassan Ado Doguwa from Kano state, are already campaigning to replace Femi Gbajabiamila.
A member of the House of Representatives representing
Owo/ Ose Federal Constituency of Ondo State in the Green Chamber, Timehin Adelegbe, who spoke to newsmen in Abuja, faulted the agitation for the slot of Speaker of the 10th National Assembly by the North West APC members.
Adelegbe noted that the zone has produced four Speakers of the House of Representatives since 1999 and should therefore be precluded from the race.
The lawmaker recalled that the North West during the tenure of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo produced Salisu Buhari and Ghali Na”Abba while the incumbent governors of Katsina and Sokoto States, Aminu Masari and Aminu Tambuwal had also occupied the position of Speaker.
He said:” Well, naturally, it is a very simple thing if we don’t put emotions into all those things. If you look at it generally, in the north there are three regions, in the south there are three regions. South-west has produced the President, naturally Speaker can not come from South-west. North-east has picked the Vice President, naturally the Speaker can not come from that area which means from the two bipolar level of south and north, two regions have left.
“So, in the north, we are left with north-west and north-central. And looking at the advent of democracy till today, north-west has produced four speakers. They produced Tambuwal, they produced Salisu Buhari, they produced Ghali Na’aba and they have produced Aminu Masari; that is north-west. So, morally this should not be a big thing.”
“Yes, north-west has contributed hugely to the electoral victory of Asiwaju. Can we say because of electoral victory say we are going to block out south-east and south-south from taking leadership of National Assembly? No. ”
Honourable Adelegbe further suggested that the APC NEC should consider zoning the position of Speaker to the North Central geo- political zone.
“In fact, if I am to advice, this is very simple, there is no way again that since north-east has picked Vice President, south-west has picked President, naturally the Senate President should either come from south-south or south-east. And since north-west has produced four speakers before, they should look into the area of Deputy President of the Senate and allow north-central which has enjoyed the luxury of being President of the Senate before now to taste the speakership. There shouldn’t be too much emotions in this. This is very simple.”
