Palpable confusion currently pervades the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) over the zoning of the principal officers of the 10th National Assembly.
Multiple sources close to the APC National Working Committee (NWC), in a chat with Saturday Sun, hinged the absence of the party’s National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, from the country, which stalled the zoning of the principal officers, as the root of the confusion.
The source also lamented that the inability of the party’s leadership to meet and resolve the zoning formula has necessitated the multiple interests from several elected legislators on the platform of the party across the country.
Interestingly, Senators-elect and House of Representatives members-elect from all the geopolitical zones have all indicated interest to contest for either Senate President or Speaker of the House of Representatives, reducing such sensitive issues to public speculations.
And miffed by the situation, an NWC member and North-West Zonal chairman, Salihu Moh Lukman, had on many occasions, confirmed that the failure of the chairman and the National Secretary, Iyiola Omisore, to convene a meeting of the national leadership of the party had stalled the resolution on the zoning arrangement.
In a statement he issued this week, Lukman noted that; “it is very disturbing and highly unacceptable that something as sensitive as electoral guidelines and regulations for electing leaders of the 10th National Assembly will be left to public speculations.
“At a time when opposition political parties are practically taken over by combinations of religious bigots and political opportunists who will go to any length to manufacture lies aimed at manipulating gullible citizens to support them, we can’t allow the contest for leadership of the 10th National Assembly to continue unregulated.
“Everything must be done to mobilize all committed party leaders and members to call all APC elected representatives aspiring for positions in the leadership of the 10th National Assembly to order,” he warned.
Confirming that the absence of the chairman and secretary was responsible for the delay in resolving the zoning arrangements, a member of the NWC said that there is no way decisions would be taken without a properly convened meeting.
“Zoning of the leadership of the principal officers of the National Assembly is a sensitive issue that requires the involvement and input of the NWC. But as worrisome as it may sound, there has not been a properly convened meeting of the NWC since the conclusion of the presidential election on February 25.
“It is really a thing of concern because there is no solution at sight since both the chairman and secretary are currently not around to convene the meeting where decisions concerning the zoning of the principal officers of the 10th National Assembly will be discussed and resolved. Everything is at a standstill for now. We are being reduced to spectators on a sensitive issue in which we are supposed to play a critical role.
“It is not surprising seeing all manners of legislators jostling for the position without recourse to the input of the national leadership of our party,” the NWC member lamented.
