10th NASS: Revolt Looms In APC As Members Kick Against Imposition Of Candidates

The twists and turns in the jostle for leadership of the 10th National Assembly continued at the weekend, with the horse-trading getting intense after indications emerged last week on the preferred candidates of the ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC) and the President-elect, Bola Tinubu.

A fresh twist was added to the race for the House of Representatives Speakership yesterday as four main contenders commenced alliance talks ahead of the June 13 inauguration.

The Speakership front runners: Ahmed Idris Wase (current deputy speaker), Aliyu Murktar Betara (Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation), Sada Soli and Sani Jaji, on Saturday night, met at the private residence of one of them in Maitama, Abuja, and agreed to work together and present a common front.

The meeting came barely 24 hours after reports had it that Tajudeen Abbas from Kaduna State, has been adopted as the preferred choice of what a source described as the ‘Lagos cabal’, led by the outgoing Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila.

This was even as a crack emerged in the Lagos caucus of the House of Representatives over the purported adoption and endorsement of Abbas as the preferred choice of the president-elect.

A close confidant of Tinubu and secretary of the now dissolved Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), James Faleke, was said to have confronted Gbajabiamila and accused him of ‘misinformation’.

But as a first step, the four lawmakers have reportedly directed their supporters to attend the declaration of each of them. Wase has, for instance, directed all his supporters to attend the declaration event of Betara slated for today (Monday) at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.

As at press time, the source put the combined figures of supporters of the four aspirants at 287 out of 360 members of the House. It was, however, unclear who among them would likely be presented and supported for the Speakership contest.

The source said: “We still give Tinubu the benefit of doubt because he himself is a product of resilience; we all supported him when there was a similar charade shortly before the presidential primary when someone attempted to do what the Speaker is doing now.

“For now, we can only say that our 287-man combined team of supporters are alert and are ready to go anywhere the four leaders jointly decide to go. As of now, they have all agreed and indeed directed that their individual support groups should attend the declaration event of any of them.”

The division among the Speakership aspirants who are of the APC has now excited the 181 members of the opposition caucus in the House. The caucus also dismissed claims that its members were beginning to drift apart adding that it would surely play the decisive role in who emerges the Speaker.

One of the spokespersons of the Minority caucus christened “Greater Majority”, Afam Victor Ogene, said the mere fact that over 10 persons were still jostling for the speakership barely a month to the inauguration of the new assembly is an indication that APC’s house is not in order.

Ogene assured that the caucus would surely settle for the best among those jostling for the Speakership seat.

Some stakeholders from the North-Central geopolitical zone in the APC have urged the President-elect to be fair and just to the zone if he wants his administration to succeed.

At a press briefing to voice out their disappointment at the purported decision of the APC National Working Committee (NWC) regarding the Speakership seat, which was said to have been zoned the Northwest, the group said if the media reports about the decision were anything to go by, the party would have shown disdain and ingratitude to the zone, which they said, did more than any other zone in the North to improve its electoral fortune at the just concluded polls.

Addressing journalists in Abuja on Sunday, the convener, Dominic Alancha, argued that the same principle of equity, justice and fairness, which compelled the Northern Governors’ Forum to insist on taking the presidency to the South, thereby paving way for the emergence of Tinubu as candidate and now President-elect, should also apply to the North Central in the zoning consideration since it has never produced a speaker before.

They stressed that compared to other zones in the region, the North Central comes tops in terms of votes for the party and number of seats won in the parliament.

“In the last general elections, the North Central, apart from giving the APC presidential ticket an overwhelming number of votes, gave a greater number of parliamentary and governorship seats to the APC.

“APC won in Kwara, Niger, Benue and Kogi states in the presidential elections and in the governorship elections, the North-central with six states gave the APC four states of Benue, Niger, Nasarawa and Kwara, while that of Kogi which is still in the hands of the APC is pending, meaning it lost only one state to the opposition parties.

“Compare this with the Northwest where APC failed to secure key states like Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi and Sokoto in the presidential elections, which usually bring the deciding votes, winning only Zamfara and Jigawa of the seven states in the zone.

“The picture is even worse with the parliamentary elections where APC lost majority seats in Kano with the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) clearing 18 out of the 24 House of Representatives seats in the state, while in Kaduna, APC lost all the three senatorial and 11 seats out of 16 seats for House of Representatives to the PDP.”

In similar vein, the purported endorsement of the aspiration of former Akwa Ibom State governor, Senator Godswill Akpabio, has induced an internal crisis among Northern leaders.

A prominent member of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Musa Saidu, said on Sunday, that Akpabio’s choice was wrong because the Senate presidency ought to come from the Northwest, a zone he argued, gave Tinubu the largest votes.

“I think it’s time for the party to reward the zone for the massive votes rather than start looking for somebody from the South as Senate President,” he said.

Kano State governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, had last week announced that key leaders of the APC in the North and across the country have already adopted Akpabio as the president of the 10th Senate, but former Kebbi State governor, Abdulaziz Yari, faulted the endorsement, describing it as undemocratic.

(Guardian)