NASS: Akeredolu says Northwest clinching two slots in presiding officers illogical

By Musa Baba Adamu

Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State has rejected the zoning arrangement for the leadership positions of the 10th National Assembly, announced by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Recall that the National Working Committee (NWC) of APC had on Monday, given North West two slots of Deputy Senate President and Speaker of House of Representatives in a zoning formula allegedly okayed by the President elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
In the House of Representatives, the party endorsed Tajudeen Abass from the North-West Kaduna State as the Speaker, just as Barau Jibril also from the North-West State of Kano for Deputy Senate President.
Condemning this zoning formula, Akeredolu, who is also the Chairman of the Southwest Governors Forum (SGF), said the zoning arrangement was skewed in injustice.
The governor, in a statement issued in Akure, the Ondo state capital, wondered why a political zone would be favoured with two slots at the instance of others in the “permutation” carried out by the ruling party.
“It is an insidious permutation that North East will be deprived in the face of the unsavoury generosity dispensed through two slots to a particular geo-political zone. It is self-repudiating for one to argue, therefore, that the Speaker of the House of Representatives cannot also emerge from the North East.
“Therefore, the move to zone the National Assembly leadership positions on the behest of interested personalities with perceived closeness to the President-elect manifestingly lays the dangerous foundation of distrust, and needless suspicion even as it structures nothing but a combination of booby traps. We must avoid all these,” he said.
Akeredolu said the intentions and motives of the zoning formula already represented early signs of steps aimed to tackle the hard-earned presidency seat for Mr Tinubu.
According to him, the North should play a stronger, more robust and all-inclusive role in the emergence of the positions zoned to the region, especially the Speakership.