A former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Yekini Nabena has lamented that the party might experience issues in zoning positions in the 10th National Assembly.
According to Nabena, the zoning controversy started in the party the day the National Chairman of the party, Abdullahi Adamu endorsed Ahmad Lawan as the party’s consensus presidential candidate against the zoning arrangement.
Nabena in a chat with Daily Sun claimed that lawmakers-elect might not obey the leadership of the party on the issue of zoning.
He called on the party to allow the lawmakers to decide who takeovers key positions in the 10th National Assembly.
Nabena said, “I have made it clear that the day the National Chairman violated the agreement on zoning arrangements by endorsing Lawan as the anointed presidential candidate, he created a faulty foundation in the party.
“Nobody is going to listen or honour whatever arrangement the party’s leadership has about the zoning of the position of the principal officers of the National Assembly because the National Chairman has already set a bad precedence.
“We should bear in mind that the National Assembly is a different arm of government. The legislators should be allowed to handle their affairs themselves. Again, the party has already committed a zoning error in the current dispensation by endorsing the zoning of two important positions to persons from the same state.
“Both the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, and the Speaker House of Representatives, Femi Ghajabiamila, came from Lagos State. It is only recently that Vice President Osinbajo moved his polling unit to Ogun State. I can tell you that no elected legislator is going to respect any zoning arrangement coming from the party’s leadership.
“What will play out is that the party will not have total control of the legislators because the chairman, who is a beneficiary of zoning, bungled the initial arrangements on the eve of the presidential primary. What is also clear is that the party’s leadership will find it difficult to wriggle out of the situation before the members of the National Assembly will take their destiny into their hands.
“For me, therefore, the party should not dabble into the sensitive issue of determining who emerges as the principal officers of the 10th Assembly. I am sure that the legislators will not even listen to the party.”
