Abubakar Chika, a former member of the House of Representatives from Niger, says excluding other aspirants in the race for the speaker of the 10th Assembly for a consensus candidate is undemocratic.

Mr Chika, who represented the Shiroro-Rafi-Munya federal constituency of Niger, said, “If the issue of zoning had been done democratically, the party would have deemed it fit to carry other contenders along. All the major contestants have said that there is no way the party will zone the speaker without carrying them along.”

The ex-legislator frowned upon excluding the North-Central and the North-East, where the APC got the majority of its votes, adding that the North-Central alone gave the APC over 40 per cent of the total vote in the North.

He said if the North-Central could deliver such votes, they deserved to be considered in the race and not abandoned for another zone.

“The APC should know that it does not have the majority, particularly in the House of Reps. The minority is greater in number, and with that, you cannot dictate to members,” stated Mr Chika. “The law did not say an APC member-elect must be the speaker, but the law says members must choose among themselves, so if APC becomes very careless as a single party even as a majority, other people will take it up.”

He urged the leadership of the APC to rethink, adding that the manner the party is going about it could backfire.

“We are not in a military administration. We are in a democratic administration. If you cannot allow zoning to take place because you want to balance certain things, then you cannot nano-zone the position of the national assembly,” Mr Chika explained. “This is carelessness. And if Mr President-elect wants to govern Nigeria well, he should be able to take a stand right now.”

The APC’s National Working Committee (NWC) on May 8 released the zoning arrangement naming Godswill Akpabio as the Senate president (South-South; Akwa Ibom), Barau Jibrin as deputy Senate president (North-West; Kano), Abass Tajudeen as House of Representatives speaker (North-West; Kaduna), and Ben Kalu as deputy speaker (South-East; Abia). 

(NAN)