SERG carpets APC over choice of 10th Assembly leadership

By Christiana Ekpa

A sociopolitical pressure organisation, the South East Revival Group (SERG) has frowned at the incoming executive’s interference in the choice of the elective leadership of the 10th National Assembly through the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), urging opposition lawmakers and the “excluded North Central to work together with other aggrieved political blocs to elect leaders of the 10th National Assembly based on competence, justice and equity.”
In its reaction to the nomination of individuals as preferred lawmakers for various elective legislative offices in the incoming National Assembly, the SERG in a statement signed by its Coordinator, Willy Ezugwu, the group noted that “the list released by the APC shows clearly that the party has learnt no lesson from its politics of exclusion in since 2015.”
The National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC had on Monday announced the zoning of the leadership of the 10th National Assembly.
According to a statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Felix Morka, the zoning arrangement as reported to the party’s NWC, indicated that the Senate President — Senator Godswill Akpabio (South-South, Akwa Ibom); Deputy Senate President — Senator Barau Jubrin (North West, Kano; Speaker of the House of Representatives — Hon. Abbas Tajudeen (North West, Kaduna); and Deputy Speaker —Hon. Ben Kalu (South East, Abia).
The SERG noted that “the announcement of the zoning arrangement after a so-called consultations and meetings held with the President-Elect, Bola Tinubu, and other stakeholders is an effort to impose a rubber stamp national legislative leadership on the lawmakers.
“Micro-zoning the elective offices to individuals has tactically arm-twisted the members of the National Assembly and denied them the constitutionally guaranteed right to choose their leaders from among themselves.
“The party threw justice, equity and rule of law to the wind by not only excluding the South East from the Senate Presidency but also gave zero allocation of elective slots to the North Central zone.
“We therefore call on the opposition parties and the excluded regions to form a formidable alliance and elect principal officers of the 10th National Assembly in the interest of good governance and the well-being of the masses”, the SERG said.