‘Unworkable’ – Akeredolu rejects APC’s zoning arrangement for National Assembly leadership

The Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, has expressed concern at the zoning of the National Assembly leadership by the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The party had on Monday nominated the former Minister of Niger Delta, Godswill Akpabio and the lawmaker representing the Zaria Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, as the senate president and speaker of the House respectively.

The APC also picked the Senator representing Kano North senatorial district, Barau Jibrin, and the current spokesman of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, as deputy senate president and deputy speaker of the House.

However, many members of the party of the party had rejected the arrangement and urged the party leaders to make further consultation on the matter.

In a statement on Wednesday, the governor decried the snub of the North-Central in the zoning of the National Assembly leadership by the ruling party.

Akeredolu described the zoning arrangement as “unworkable” because it “reinforces and enhances inequity.”

He wondered why the North-West would get two leadership slots – deputy senate president and speaker – while the North-Central was ignored in the arrangement.

READ ALSO: 10th NASS: 18 North-Central Senators-elect kick against APC zoning

The governor wrote: “It is with great concern, and indeed, with a huge burden that I read in the news of the purported zoning arrangement released by the national working committee of our party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) as regards the leadership positions in the yet-to-be inaugurated national assembly.

“Aside from the unpretentious ambiguity in the purported press statement issued by the leadership of the APC, the contents, intentions and motives of the zoning formula represent early signs of steps aimed at attempts to cabin the hard-earned presidency for our leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu by a few individuals with eyes on Aso Rock Power Buttons.

“It is trite to aver, that, it stands logic on the head that one geo-political zone, North-West in this regard, will be favoured with two presiding officers positions out of four while North-Central suffers the consequences for its innocence and shrewd loyalty by having none.

“Therefore, the move to zone the national assembly leadership positions on the behest of interested personalities with perceived closeness to the president-elect manifesting lays the dangerous foundation of distrust, and needless suspicion even as it structures nothing but a combination of booby traps. We must avoid all these.

“Let the North play stronger, more robust and all-inclusive roles in the emergence of the positions zoned to the region, especially the speakership.

“It is an insidious permutation that North-East will be deprived in the face of the unsavoury generosity dispensed through two slots to a particular geo-political zone. It is self-repudiating for one to argue, therefore, that the speaker of the House of Representatives cannot also emerge from the North-East.”

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