The All Progressives Congress South-East Renaissance Group has called on the leadership of the party to zone the position of the Speaker, House of Representatives in the 9th National Assembly to the South-East.
The group also called on members of the House from other zones to withdraw from the speakership race and leave the position for the Southeast.
Convener of the group, Chris Onyemechara, who made the call at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, faulted the Southwest’s desire to produce the Speaker of the House in the person of Femi Gbajabiamila on the basis that the zone produced the vice president.
He insisted that such an aspiration by the Southwest was unacceptable.
According to Onyemechara the APC denied the South-East principal office positions in the National Assembly in 2015 on the grounds that the zone did not have a ranking member on the platform of the party. He therefore lamented that now that the zone had produced two ranking members, the party’s leaders seemed to be shifting ground.
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“A situation where the same geopolitical zone which produced the Vice-President of the country and the national leader of our party is seen scheming and demanding, with a bloated sense of entitlement, the Speakership of the House of Representatives, smacks of political avarice, brazen injustice and grave disservice to good conscience.
“Politics of exclusion did not yield much political dividends for our party in the South-East in the last election.
“Wisdom will advise that our party embraces politics of inclusion.
“Politics of exclusion did not work, why don’t we try politics of inclusion?
“Under the circumstance, the best way to start is to zone the Speakership of the House of Representatives to the South-East.
“We therefore call on our party members from other geopolitical zones jostling for the Speakership of the House of Representatives to forthwith withdraw from the race and support the South-East in the spirit of fairness, justice and equity,” Onyemechara said.
