Speakership: Rep warns APC against disqualifying N’West

One of the top contenders for the post of the Speaker, House of Representatives in the incoming 8th National Assembly, Abdulmumin Jibrin, on Tuesday cautioned the leadership of the All Progressives Congress against disqualifying lawmakers from the North-West geo-political zone from contesting the leadership positions in the federal parliament.

Jibrin, who is the current Chairman, House Committee on Finance, described as blackmail arguments that no lawmaker from the North-West should be considered as either the Senate President or as Speaker of the House of Representatives because the President-elect is from the zone.

He insisted that the emergence of Muhammadu Buhari from the North-West should not affect the zoning arrangement because he had been automatically excluded, having been elected before the party started discussion on the issue of National Assembly leadership.

He said, “In the first instance, we are getting the interpretation of the zoning arrangement completely wrong. The Presidency is not supposed to be zoned because whoever emerges is the President of the whole Nigeria. Muhammadu Buhari, was never presented as the candidate of the North-West.

“The whole idea is for the President to emerge first. After the emergence of the President, the six geo-political zone would have to sit down and distribute whatever position that are left particularly, that of the parliament.

“I think we need to get this properly right. There would be seven segments. Six are those of the zone while one is that of the President. This is really going to help the country when people actually realise that the President is not supposed to be included in the zoning arrangement.”

Jibrin further argued that Governor Rochas Okorocha would not have contested against Muhammadu Buhari if the post of the President was included in the APC zoning arrangement.

He said, “Although the President-elect is from the North-West but trying to exclude his zone from benefiting from the leadership positions in the incoming 8th National Assembly is very unfair.

Jibrin said his zone had the largest contingent of the state assembly members, Senators, members of the House of Representatives and even recorded the highest number of votes during the Presidential election.

He said, “What do we tell our people if you exclude us from the leadership positions in the National Assembly, simply because of zoning? We want the President to concentrate on the entire country. We want other offices that we will take back to our people, because they need to hold on to something.”

He therefore called on every eligible senator and member of the House of Representatives from the North-West to, “come out and contest the leadership of the National Assembly because it is our right and we should not be boxed into a corner.”