The zoning arrangement released by the National Working Committee, NWC of the All Progressives Congress, APC is being resisted by some members of the party from the North Central geopolitical zone.
Hundreds of protesters from geopolitical zone on Monday, stormed the national secretariat of the APC threatening to occupy the party’s headquarters should the party’s leadership fails to concede the Speakership position of the House of Representatives to the zone.
The North Central geopolitical zone is composed of Nasarawa, Kogi, Niger, Kwara, Plateau and Benue states
The protesters carried posters with various inscriptions like; “President-elect be fair and just to Nigerians, ‘North Central deserves Speakership position, ‘Its time to reward Nirth Central, ‘We demand for equity, fairness, and justice, ‘members-elect do the needful,” among others.
The protest lasted for about 30 minutes during which the leader, Salihu Ibrahim, threatened to ground the secretariat should the leadership of the ruling party fails to zone the Speakership position to the North Central geopolitical zone.
According to them; “We will continue to protest peacefully and tell them it is unfair and we are not ready to constitute nuisance or disobey the constitutional authority but we would protest peacefully and occupy the party secretariat,” the protesters threatened.
“We are all here to call the attention of the national chairman of the ruling APC and to congratulate the president electi in the person of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and to tell him that we, the North Central have contributed a lot to his success and we want to still tell him that we are marginalised as regards the sharing formulas of offices of the 10th National Assembly.
“The party has not taken the North Central into consideration and it is outrageous. We are not happy right from the emergence of the APC. We the North Central have contributed largely to the development of APC and up till date, we are still on it. Why is it that the National Assembly Speaker is something that President-elect under the watch of Abdullahi Adamu, who is even from the North Central, will not wholeheartedly say the zone should take and the party should zone it to us.
“It is with zoning consideration the APC did that the presidential flagbearer in the last election went to the South that resulted in Tinubu’s emergence. We contributed a lot to his success, we contribute largely. What is our position and what is good for us as people of the North Central is the reason we are here to see the APC National Chairman today.
“We are not asking too much, we are asking that the position of Speaker of the 10th Assembly should be zone to North Central. That is what we want for now.
“We didn’t come here to name the candidate but for the interest of North Central. The zone should be taken into consideration and should be recognised and appreciated by the APC national level.
“If Abdullahi Adamu under his watch can allow this to happen to us, we respect his leadership, his stability in the party but the stability is not paying the North Central well if we have nothing nationally given to us as regards to the parliament. The 10th Assembly Speakership should be zone to North Central if they can’t give us the Senate President,” he said.
