By: Taiwo Amodu – Abuja
National Vice Chairman, North-West of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and member of the party National Working Committee (NWC), Salihu Lukman, has advocated for zoning of the Senate Presidency of the 10th National Assembly to the South-South region.
The former Director-General of the Progressives Governors Forum in a statement on Monday, titled; “APC and Tasks of Negotiating 10th NASS Leadership,” chided aspirants from the North West whom he accused of making open declaration for the exalted seat without recourse to the North West leadership of the party.
The member of the APC NWC dismissed contenders for the office from the south east as he noted that the APC fared poorly in the zone in last general elections compared to the South-South.
He said:” Partly, because of the ineffectiveness of the party’s National Secretariat, no proposal is on the table for consideration of any organ of the party. Instead, we have many fake proposals circulating with hardly any attempt to initiate alternative proposals for debate within the constitutional structures of APC. It may however interest all of us that the configuration of the leadership that will be assuming office on May 29, 2023 is about the same with that of 1999. Recall that in 1999, we had former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar respectively from South-West and North-East.
“Taking bearing from that, we had Senate President from the South-East and Deputy Senate President from North-Central. Recall that also, we had the National Chairman of the ruling party from North-Central.
“In the House of Representatives, we had a Speaker from North-West and Deputy Speaker from South-South. Other positions in the leadership of the National Assembly were distributed accordingly to other zones. Given the challenge of neutralising religious tension in the country, this would appear to be advantageous. For instance, if Senate President is to come form South-East, he would certainly be a Christian. The only problem is the experience of 1999 – 2003, which highlighted problems of instability with the South-East holding the position of Senate President. Also, as at 1999, the South-East strongly voted for the PDP to emerge as the ruling party. The same could not be said today.
“Perhaps, to avoid that, and to compensate the South-South, which gave more votes to the APC, including winning the Governorship election in Cross River and majority members of the Edo State House of Assembly, consideration can be given for the South-South to produce the Senate President.
“If that is to be considered, then the position of Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives should be given to the South-East. All these are issues to be debated, around which a decision would have to be taken one way or the other. Once there is a decision, it will be binding on everyone.”
Lukman further appealed to the national chairman of the party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, to seize the initiative on the zoning arrangement for Presiding Officers of the National Assembly.
“The APC NWC led by Senator Abdullahi Adamu need to become more aggressive in driving the process of negotiating leadership of the 10th National Assembly. Laid back attitude of the NWC being the administrative organ of the party has produced embarrassing situations of public disagreement with the National Chairman over the issue of consensus Presidential candidate before the party’s Presidential Primary in June 2022. It is also responsible for some of the disagreements between some members of the NWC with the party’s Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) before the 2023 elections.
“Part of the challenge is that it has become a practice whereby NWC continues to appropriate powers of superior organs of the party, especially the National Executive Committee (NEC). So long as the NWC continue to govern the party based on the strategy of usurping the powers of NEC, elected representatives of the party will continue to organise rebellion against what could be regarded as positions of the party.
“We need to strongly appeal to the National Chairman, Senator Adamu to consider a wider consultative process in managing affairs of the party. Adopting a wider consultative process will require invoking provisions of the party constitution to convene NEC and National Caucus meetings.
“This public appeal has become necessary given the flood of aspirants for leadership of the 10th National Assembly, which if left to continue unregulated could throw up unexpected people in the leadership of the 10th National Assembly. Should that be allowed to happen may result in producing the undesirable consequences of destroying the electoral viability of APC in future elections.
“As a ruling party, mandated to provide political leadership to the country for the next four years, everything must be done to sustain the confidence of Nigerians.”
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