Like North Central and S’West, S’East APC joins quest for Speaker position

The politics of which zone produces the House of Representatives Speaker in the incoming 9th Assembly is getting more intense with South East All Progressives Congress (APC) joining the list.

Earlier, the North Central and the South West House of Representatives members had demanded that the position be zoned to their regions.

Like them, South East APC Youths Consultative Forum, on Monday also called on the leadership of the party to zone the position to the region.

Addressing newsmen in Abuja, national coordinator of the South East APC youths, Romanus Oguleme, said the zone has credible and ranking members of the party in the National Assembly to head any of the two chambers.

He cautioned that the South-East should not be schemed out in the National Assembly leadership as was the case in 2015.

APC allegedly claimed in 2015 that the zone was not considered for positions of principal officers because it had no ranking APC members.

But the South-East group said the excuse cannot be used again because the region now has two returning members in the House.

According to the group, zoning the speakership to South East will be in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s promise of inclusive government.

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“We categorically state that the South East has two ranking members of the APC and these two: chairman House Committee on Healthcare Services, Hon. Chike Okafor and chairperson House Committee on Aviation, Hon. Nkeiru Onyejeocha are eminently qualified to run for Speaker or to be appointed as principal officers.

“If the performance of both members in the 8th Assembly should be used as criteria, they have proven themselves capable of handling delicate and sensitive assignments.

“Just as the Hon. Okafor-led the Heathecare Services Committee in effectively performing its oversight functions on the health sector, with many Nigerians still remembering the highly publicised probe into the alleged N351 billion fraud in the NHIS as well as stakeholders’ commendation of the House sub-committee of Primary Healthcare Care revitalization, Hon. Onyejeocha performed creditably well in leading her committee in ensuring a good standard of efficiency in the aviation sector”, the group said in its statement,” Oguleme said.

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