There were concerns at the weekend within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) that the party could lose control of the National Assembly following subtle threats by aggrieved aspirants for leadership positions in the 10th Assembly to ditch APC.

This came to light on a day it was learnt that some northern and southwestern statesmen, including two former heads of state and traditional rulers, had waded into the rancour and spoken with some key lawmakers-elect to douse the tension the matter has created in the polity.

The party had, last week, unveiled a zoning formula to elect principal officers of the 10th Assembly, a situation that has pitched most of the contenders against the Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led National Working Committee (NWC).

It also named Tajudeen Abbas (APC Kaduna) and Benjamin Kalu (APC Abia) as Speaker and Deputy Speaker respectively.

However, at a parley between contenders for the Senate presidency and Adamu, one of them, a senator representing Niger East, Sani Musa, noted that membership of the party was voluntary and not compulsory.

“The party has to put in mind that this is a voluntary thing.

Membership of a party is voluntary but my principles and our principles are not voluntary. It is what we are built of and we can stand by that”, Musa stated.

Some insiders in the APC interpreted the senator’s statement to mean that the aggrieved contenders for principal offices in the National Assembly were weighing all the options available to them to checkmate the zoning formula, including working against APC candidates on election day on the floor of parliament or outright defection.

APC has a narrow lead over all the opposition lawmakers-elect put together in both chambers of the National Assembly and the opposition lawmakers-elect have vowed to use that advantage to position two of their own as Senate-President and Speaker.

APC boasts of 59 senators-elect while the opposition parties have 50.

For the House of Representatives, APC has 160 members-elect, opposition parties have 200.

Both chambers need only a simple majority to elect their principal officers. One of the insiders, a party official who did not want his name mentioned as he was not authorized to speak on the matter, said that, consequent upon the development, there was pressure being mounted on Adamu to convene a meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) to review the zoning formula and come up with a final verdict.

He said: “The challenge we have was lack of adequate consultations. If the matter had been taken to the NEC, various stakeholders would have been present and no one would have defied NEC resolutions. If there is no NEC resolution, some of these contenders could align with the opposition and leave the party in protest. But, as it were, this formula is more like a ‘cabal’ thing. Only a few persons took that decision on zoning.

We are working to have more members, not to lose our own members because we do not really have an absolute majority in both chambers.

“What some of us have suggested is to use our governors to reach out to certain key opposition lawmakers-elect because these our aggrieved contenders are ready to work with the opposition to upturn the formula.

“We are also hoping to use the NEC to pacify these contenders with promises of juicy offers.

However, like what one of them said, Adamu has not honoured past agreements even when it had to do with something as little as refunding fees paid for nomination forms by those who contested for NWC positions in our last year’s elective national convention”.

Dark horses

Worried by the tension the battle for the 10th National Assembly principal offices has generated, statesmen, including two former military heads of state and some first class traditional rulers in the North and South-West, have intervened and spoken to key senators-elect.

They were said to be proposing alternative candidates as a compromise, possibly dark horses, for Senate President and Speaker.

According to a senator-elect, who spoke to our correspondents in Abuja on the condition of anonymity, yesterday, the elder statesmen took the task individually and reached out to key senators particularly from the North, to give preference to Nigeria’s unity and national cohesion in their actions over the election of the Assembly leadership.

A source said that in their talks with the senators-elect, the major appeal was for the North not to use their higher numerical strength to emasculate the Senate in the contest for its leadership.

“Instead, they appealed to us to emulate the APC governors from Northern Nigeria who in the most patriotic manner gave all their support to the emergence of a southern candidate for the party and did all within their powers for the victory of Bola Tinubu from the South-West at the polls”, he stated.

They are talking to us, especially those who have declared interest in the presidency of the senate to drop their legitimate ambitions for the sake of unity and cohesion of Nigeria and support the Southern region in producing it” The senator- elect, however, confirmed that the northern senators were not initially against the South producing the Senate President but that they were piqued because of the way the president[1]elect unilaterally went for Akpabio.

“But, with the seriousness of the moves by these patriotic and highly respected statesmen and the esteemed traditional rulers, I see the major contender from the North, Abdulaziz Abubakar Yari dropping the gauntlet and supporting a more credible and consensus vibrant aspirant from the South”, he stated.

“Apart from the manner he was chosen by the president-elect, northern senators see an Akpabio[1]led Senate as an attempt to bring back the agitations for resource control, something they loathe with passion. “We cannot trust his leadership as he is unlikely going to protect the interest of the North”.

Apart from Senator Orji Kalu, the other senator-elect in the race for Senate President from the SouthEast is Senator Osita Izunaso

(Imo-West), a former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Gas and Housing.

Call for NEC meeting

Also, yesterday, the Coalition of APC Support Groups asked the Adamu-led NWC to immediately take steps to convene a meeting of NEC.

According to them, the NEC meeting had become very important in order to stave off a possible backlash from lawmakers[1]elect as a result of the controversial zoning formula adopted for the next National Assembly.

They also demanded that the Senate presidency be ceded to the South-East in the interest of equity and justice.

On his part, Zamfara West senator-elect, Abdulaziz Yari, urged his colleagues to eschew ethno-religious sentiments in the choice of the next Senate

President. Yari, in a message to senators-elect, urged them not to disappoint their constituents as their actions, inactions, omissions and commissions may affect them directly or indirectly.

The Coalition of APC Support Groups, in a letter to Adamu and signed by its National Secretary, Mazi Peter Okoroafor, said the National Assembly leadership ought to have emanated through due consultations with stakeholders of the party in all the zones.

A copy of the letter read to journalists by Adanu Isaiah noted that a situation whereby decisions of zoning formula of the 10th

National Assembly leadership was taken by a few persons and imposed on the party was tantamount to provoking opposition, rejection and ill[1]feelings among the party faithful.

Meanwhile, chieftain of the party, Olujonwo Obasanjo threw his weight behind the APC zoning formula, describing as the best combination.

Speaking in Abuja, Olujonwo, the son of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, appealed to lawmakers-elect to support the decision of the party and rally around the consensus candidates for the good of democracy and the incoming administration.

He specifically endorsed the choice of Akpabio as Senate President and Tajudeen Abbas as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Admitting the principle of separation of powers among the three arms of government, he, however, argued that it was a fallacy that such separation is absolute. (Sunday Vanguard)

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