Southeast APC leaders call for review of National Assembly leadership zoning arrangement

MEMBERS of the All Progressives Congress (APC) southeast caucus have called on the party's national leadership to review the zoning of National Assembly leadership positions as the current arrangement appears to be unfairly skewed against Ndigbo.

On June, the ninth National Assembly will resume sitting and its first course of action will be to elect its leaders. Of primary concern are the positions of senate president and deputy and that of the speaker of the House of Representatives and deputy, none of which have been zoned to the southeast.

With President Muhammadu Buhari coming from the northwest and vice president Professor Yemi Osinbajo coming from the southwest, all the four other zones are expected to be vying for the National Assembly leadership positions. However, in a surprise decision, the APC leadership has zoned the senate presidency to the northeast and speaker of the House of Representatives to the southwest.

Irked by this blatant unfairness, the southeast caucus of the APC has held a meeting in Enugu at which it demanded a review of the zoning arrangement. Presided over by the party's national vice chairman southeast, Chief Emma Eneukwu, the meeting was attended by science and technology minister Ogbonnaya Onu, his labour counterpart Dr Chris Ngige, senator-elect Orji Uzo Kalu, former minister Chief Emeka Worgu and serving and incoming members of the National Assembly.

In a seven-point communiqué issued after the meeting, they called on the national leadership of the party to revisit the subsisting zoning of principal offices in the ninth National Assembly in a more equitable manner. They asked for a zoning formula that will accord more deserving positions to the southeast, considering that the federation of Nigeria is made up of the six geo-political zones of the southeast, south-south, southwest, north central, northeast and northwest.

Under its present arrangement, the APC NWC has zoned the speakership of the House of Representatives to the southwest and the Senate presidency to the northeast, while deputy senate president goes to the south-south, leaving the southeast with nothing. As a result, the zone has kicked against the decision, calling for a review.

In their communiqué, the southeast leaders called on the APC's NWC to draw strength from the need to utilise the zoning of principal offices in the ninth National Assembly to further deepen and strengthen the electoral appeal of the party, especially in parts of the country where it may be considered as weak. They also exhorted professionals and leaders of thought of Igbo extraction to take an active interest in the aspirations of leaders and members of the party from the zone.

Consequently, a committee, chaired by the minister, Chief Ogbonnaya Onu, who is the leader of the party in the zone, has been saddled with the responsibility of interfacing with the party hierarchy and leaders in the other zones with a view to getting the southeast a fair position in the National Assembly. They also deplored what they called the undue interference and unwholesome meddlesomeness by forces from outside the zone in the affairs of the southeast, aimed at factionalising and destabilising the party.