Many talks have mostly been about the Senate presidential seat in the upper chamber, but interestingly, conversations about the speakership seat in the House of Representatives have begun to surface…… CONTINUE READING
In a recent report by the Punch newspaper, it was gathered that re-elected and newly-elected members of the House of Representatives from the opposition camps are already synergising to upstage the ruling party for the speakership position.
Meanwhile, in the camp of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), there are ongoing conversations amongst the party’s leadership to zone the speakership position.
However, this move does not go well with elected lawmakers in the opposition who are already plotting to join forces and override the APC.
The aspiration for the speakership position has risen to ten, and conversations amongst the opposition have already been set in motion.
Old and new members of the House of Representatives from the PDP, NNPP, APGA, SDP, ADC and YPP were all in attendance at the strategy meeting.
The meeting had high-ranking members of the lower chambers like Oluwole Oke (PDP/Osun), Beni Lar (PDP/Plateau), Boma Goodhead (PDP/Rivers), Bamidele Salam (PDP/Osun), Dachung Bagos (PDP/Plateau), and Jonathan Gbefwi (SDP/Nasarawa), as well as a former ranking member, Abdulmumin Jibrin (NNPP/Kano), who has been re-elected back to the parliament.
Currently, the combined members of the House of Reps in the opposition camp are 163, while the APC controls 162 seats.
Ali Isa, the mastermind of the plot, acknowledged that there needs to be an alliance to topple the APC while speaking to the media.
He said:
“For now, the opposition has not taken any decision. We are still consulting. But we have the numbers to do anything we want.
“All the political parties, – LP, APGA, YPP, SDP, ADC and PDP – came together to be united; to also see what we can do to help this country.
“We will also appreciate if the executive will allow the lawmakers to enjoy independence. We will also not interfere in the affairs of the executive.”
He also noted that all lawmakers from the opposition party had resolved not to recognise the zoning plot to be adopted by the APC in selecting who becomes the next Speaker of the House of Reps.
He said:
“We have no business with any zoning. We in the opposition, what we are looking at is to unite the country to ensure people benefit. We don’t have any agenda for zoning on our table.”
