The Northern Democratic Agenda (NDA) through its National President, Turaki Yakubu, has raised the alarm over the dangers of any further delay by the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to immediately work out a formula to occupy the positions of presiding officers of the 10th National Assembly to the appropriate geographical zones of the country.
The group working for the emergence of a former Akwa Ibom State governor and immediate-past minister of the Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, also drew attention of the leadership of the party to the tension currently building up in the South-South in the event the party ignores the zone in favour of South-East or North-West for the Senate Presidency on the ground of fears of instability and restiveness, stressing that “we are certainly sure that the volatility in the South-South as the zone that produces our common ealth should be taken more seriously and should be of more concern to Nigeria and its unity and peace, hence the South-South must be a priority.”
The group explicitly maintained that those supporting other regions were protagonists of the nation’s unity and should never be given the opportunity to cause more troubles in the South-South and Nigeria in general.
According to the statement, “we have listened to all the arguments and we want to put it straight away that our support for South-South and indeed Senator Akpabio comes on the heels of our study of the Nigerian perculiarity and the need to always give every zone a fair share of participation in the national politics of Nigeria.
“We are shocked that having produced the Senate Presidency for 8 years when the Presidency was in the South-West, the South-East still would lay claims to the number three office when the South-South hasn’t produced any since advent of democracy and now that the presidency has returned to the South-West. This is against the laws of natural justice, it defies all known logic and it’s simply pedestrian to use the restiveness in the South-East as if there has been no restiveness in the South-South.
“Secondly, it is ridiculous to base your arguments on the situation between 1999 up to 2007 and the situation we have in hand. In this last election, the APC won states in all the geo-political zones including North-East where Atiku of the PDP comes from, so why didn’t the APC win states in South-East? The APC won states in South-South and that shows the amount of work done in South-South and other zones for the APC. The South-East on the other hand simply didn’t vote and will not vote for the APC anytime. So what yardstick will you apply to reward the South-East zone with the third most highest office and leave out the South-South?”
The group continued, “The President-elect will be back today as we have heard and we urge him and the leadership of the party to quickly resolve this zoning quagmire to forestall a possibly infiltration of opposition parties bent on seeing to the emergence of a weak candidate that will be teleguided to do their biddings and create crisis for the executive as it was between 2015 and 2019.”
The group further said that the choice of Senator Akpabio will provide a robust and mutually respectful relationship between the parliament and other arms of the Government in the interest of Nigeria .
“We recommend the former Minority leader because he is the most ranking Senator from the South-South,,he understands the need for executive and legislative cooperation and will provide an all inclusive leadership of the 10th National Assembly having built friendship across religious and political party divides.
“Finally it is important to state that the South South produces the oil and common wealth of Nigeria and nobody should consider any other restiveness from other zones much more than a situation of restiveness in the Niger Delta region . We must not allow ourselves to make decisions that will treat the personal ego of a few individuals, we must protect our common wealth ,those seeking to scheme out the South South are true enemies of Nigeria and must be resisted at all cost,” NDA added.
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