Contrary to expectations, a former acting National Chairman of the All
Progressives Congress, Chief Bisi Akande, has said that the party will
not choose the next President of the Senate through zoning.
Akande, who spoke with some journalists in Ikeja, on Tuesday, explained that zoning was strange to the APC.
A
member of the APC's Board of Trustees, Akande said the party's
constitution did not recognise zoning, adding that zoning was a creation
of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party.
The former governor of
Osun State said the leadership of the party shot down the idea of zoning
when it was brought up by the party's current National Chairman, Chief
John Odigie-Oyegun.
He said, "Zoning is very, very strange to the
APC. There is no zoning in our constitution. We don't want to copy the
PDP in whatever we are doing. We have the best of brains and culture
among our leadership. We want the best for Nigeria. Because of this, we
don't want to entertain zoning
"It is true that sometime after the
general election, the (party's) national chairman wanted to toy with
the idea of zoning and unanimously we said no, we don't want to zone."
Describing
the PDP as a prodigal party, Akande said one of the institutions
through which the ruling party frittered the nation's revenues was the
National Assembly.
He said, "We are taking over from a delinquent
(PDP) administration and one of the most prodigal institutions of that
administration is the National Assembly. The (former) Central Bank
Governor said the recurrent expenditure of the National Assembly was
N10bn and that it rose to about N150bn.
"Their personal income is
prohibitive and secretive. This created the scramble for the leadership
of the legislature and we don't want our party to be involved in the
prodigal nature of the National Assembly.
"In order to tone it
down, we need to do a lot of compromises and sacrifices and we need to
select from among the leaders who are in the Senate that would be able
to control the culture of the Assembly according to the policy of our
party."
The Ila-Orangun-born politician recalled that during the
second republic, the President, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, hailed from the
North just as the Vice-President, Chief Alex Ekwueme hailed from the
South-East and the Speaker of the Senate, Chief Edwin Ume-Ezuoke, hailed
from the South-East.
He also said that in the current political
dispensation, President Goodluck Jonathan is from the South-East while
the Vice-President, Namadi Sambo, and Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, are from the North.
Akande said,
"This can happen. We don't want to say Christian, Muslim or Ibo or
Yoruba. We want to be careful, otherwise, we won't be able to produce
the best. We are trying to select the best man. We don't want what
brought the PDP down (to bring us down)."
When asked if the
exclusion of zoning in the selection process would not affect the
federal character nature of post sharing among the zones of the country,
Akande said no, adding that the exclusion of zoning would be used only
for the post of the Senate President.
He said, "We are talking
about Senate President. Once we pick the Senate President, others would
follow suit and they will now say, since the Senate President is from so
and so zone, then the deputy senate president can't be from there; that
he should be from elsewhere. But we must choose the best person first."
Title : APC Won’t Use Zoning to Pick Senate President – Akande
Description : Contrary to expectations, a former acting National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Chief Bisi Akande, has said that the party w...