South West may lose House speakership

The division in the South-West Peoples Democratic Party is threatening the chances of the zone in clinching the speakership of the House of Representatives.

Investigations on Monday showed that the South-West PDP was currently divided between the candidacy of Mr. Muraina Ajibola and Mrs. Mulikat Akande-Adeola.

The National Working Committee of the party had at its meeting last Wednesday zoned the speakership of the House to the South-West and the Senate Presidency to the North-Central.

Shortly after the announcement, the South-West PDP had met at the Abeokuta home of former President Olusegun Obasanjo last Thursday and picked Ajibola as its consensus candidate for the speakership.


But it was learnt that some chieftains of the party, including a member of the party’s Board of Trustees, Alhaji Shaibu Oyedokun, were opposed to the selection of Ajibola.

Those criticising Ajibola’s selection comprise mainly party members, who were opposed to Obasanjo’s leadership in the zone.

A member of the House, Mrs. Mulikat Akande-Adeola, who has also signified her intention to contest the speakership, had in an interview with journalists, said the decision to pick Ajibola was taken by few members of the party in the zone.

Akande-Adeola said, “We have members of the party’s National Executive Committee, who were not part of that meeting. I think in a contest where you have three or two people, you must hear them out. I don’t think it was right to pick one person without this.”

It was gathered that the South-West’s inability to put its house in order might be its undoing when the members of the House would resume to elect the speaker.

He said, “We have done our best for the South-West by giving the speakership to it . If our members from the zone fail to unite, the position may elude us.”

Besides the infighting among the PDP members in the zone, the chances of the zone producing the speaker was being threatened by the decision of the re-elected members of the House to resist external interference.

It was learnt that most of the re-elected members met at Zone B of the Apo Legislative Quarters on Sunday over the issue.

At the meeting, it was learnt that the lawmakers analysed the chances of candidates that had emerged from the South-West and concluded that they were not independent.

A lawmaker, who attended the meeting, said, “Many who spoke, believe that Ajibola is Obasanjo’s candidate, while some were of the view that Akande-Adeola had the support of the Presidency.

“We are looking for somebody that is independent. We will go to any length to get such a person, even if it requires working against the PDP zoning formula.”

It was also learnt the chances of the zone were further dimmed by the position of two main opposition parties— Action Congress of Nigeria and Congress for Progress Change — to work against the PDP zoning of the post.

Investigations showed that the ACN, at a closed-door meeting with its National Assembly members-elect, agreed that its lawmakers would vote against any candidate annointed by the PDP as Dimeji Bankole’s successor.

An ACN chieftain, who spoke to one of our correspondents, said supporting a PDP candidate from the South-West would not be in the interest of the party (ACN), which swept the National Assembly polls in the zone.

He said, “The PDP has said that it will use the zoning of the speakership to the South-West to revive itself in the zone. We do not want South-West PDP to get the position. We want the party dead in the zone permanently.”

In its reaction, the CPC said its members would not work with the PDP in its quest to select a speaker for the House.

The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. Rotimi Fashakin, said, “Our party members will do what is right and form alliances with the right party, but definitely not the PDP.

“We shall have alliances with parties that share the same values with us.”

Also in Abuja, a member of the Senate from the South-East, Chief Uche Chukwumerije, said that the South-East was not been treated fairly by the PDP in the zoning arrangement.

He lamented that no Igbo man was at the caucus meeting where the zoning issue was discussed because the zone was not being represented at the PDP NWC.

Chukwumerije said it would be against natural justice for a zone that laboured hard for the party to be sidelined when plum offices were being zoned.

He said, “We have now reached a critical turn. After giving the highest percentage support to the national party and the federal project in the last four elections, the South-East and Ndigbo have nothing else to do to prove their prime candidacy for a frontline position in Nigeria.

“The least which we should get now is a high leverage appropriate to this performance record.

“The minimum due to us is either the Senate President or Speaker of the House of Representatives. This insult of ‘monkey dey work, baboon dey chop’ must stop.”

Meanwhile, an organisation, the South-East Revival Group, has blamed the ordeal of the South-East in its bid to produce the Speaker or the Senate President on a cabal in the Presidency.

“We know that this is a product of the machination of the cabal around the President (Dr. Goodluck Jonathan),” the group’s Chairman, Chief Willy Ezeugwu, told journalists in Abuja.

He, therefore, urged Jonathan to ensure that the office of the Senate President or the Speaker of the House of Representatives was zoned to the South-East.

Ezeugwu claimed that governors from the zone were being intimidated to keep quiet over the ‘injustice meted out to the Igbo’ because of fear of the massive rigging of governorship election in the zone.

Four re-elected members of the House from the South-East — Mr. Emeka Iheodioha, Mr. Bathel Amadi, Mr. Ezeuiche Ubani, and Mr. Ogbuefi Ozomogbachi— have all indicated interest in the post.

The Deputy Whip of the House, Mr. Aminu Waziri-Tambulwai (from Sokoto State), who has been in the House since 1999, is being tipped for the post also .

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