To avoid the repeat of the 8th Assembly where party couldn’t influence the emergence of Bukala Saraki-led National Assembly, a chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Rev. Dominic Alancha, has asked Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led National Working Committee (NWC), to convene an urgent National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the party to deliberate on the zoning formula of the Presiding Officers and Principal Officers of the 10th Assembly.
Alancha said the NEC meeting has become imperative given the desperate scramble for the 10th NASS leadership positions by federal lawmakers elected on the platform of the APC, adding that at the last count, there were about seven aspirants to the office of the President of the Senate and not less than Ten (10) aspirants for the Speakership.
In an 8-paragraph letter addressed to the National Chairman dated, 15th April 2023, a copy obtained by Blueprint, Wednesday in Abuja, the APC chieftain recalled that a top member of the APC’s National Working Committee (NWC) recently revealed that some incoming federal legislators were offering bags of rice, bags of sugar and other inducements to their colleagues and NWC Members in a bid to garner support for their ambitions in the 10th NASS Polls; amid unsavoury claims that some elected lawmakers were being offered thousands and millions of dollars as bribes to influence their votes in the 10th NASS Polls.
Alancha said: “If the APC fails to come up early enough with a zoning formula for the 10th NASS Polls, the various aspirants for the top seats might have invested a lot of resources and emotions in the race, hence may be reluctant to shelve their ambitions at the eleventh hour and that could result in acrimonies and dissensions within the party, as witnessed during the election of the 8th NASS leadership in 2015.”
Rev. Alancha also said the 10th NASS Polls offers a great opportunity for the APC to compensate for regional and ethnic imbalances in the national power equation resulting from the political permutations that informed the party’s choices of 2023 Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates.
According to him, “We must ensure that the zoning of the 10th NASS positions accords a sense of belonging to all the geopolitical zones and fosters a sense of national unity and cohesion, in line with our party’s Aims and Objectives.”
He further cautioned that the party does not maintain a comfortable lead in either Chamber of the National Assembly, hence the party must approach the issue of the 10th NASS leadership with wisdom, tact and precision, in order not to create excuses for some desperate aspirants to forge unholy alliances with the opposition, which could tip the balance of probabilities against the APC’s interest.
“To enable broader deliberations on this important subject matter, the NEC may wish to expand the meeting to include the President-Elect and his Vice or their representatives; the National Advisory Council; the National Working Committee and the National Caucus,” Alancha said.
