Following the emergence of Hon Tajudeen Abbas and Hon Benjamin Kalu as presiding officers for the 10th House of Representatives, the battle over who gets what has been shifted to principal officers of the House.
The principal officers of the House are Majority (House) Leader, Deputy Leader, Chief Whip, Deputy Whip, Minority Leader, Deputy Minority Leader, Deputy Minority Leader, Minority Whip and Deputy Minority Whip.
LEADERSHIP gathered that the zones jostling for the position of House Leader are North East, North Central and South south.
The House Leader, which usually emerges from the party with the majority in the House and control of the federal government, is by all standards the number three position in a legislative House.
While the APC which has the majority in the House, with over 160 members, is yet to zone the principal officers, these zones are entangled in a battle to grab the position, which is the voice of the executive in the parliament.
The APC national chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, had said the party would waste no time in determining those who occupy principal offices of the National Assembly (NASS).
Adamu who met with President Bola Tinubu at the presidential villa after the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly said, “What is now left for us, as a party, is to sit and determine the remaining members of each of these principal officers.
“We’re going to sit over this and we want to believe that we’re going to waste no time whatsoever, we’ll come up with what we’ll give the President to get his buy-in before it’s made public or before it goes to the National Assembly. This day is very historic.”
But a senior official of the party told LEADERSHIP that the APC is yet to take a decision on the issue.
The source who did not want his name in print said the governing party is consulting widely to avoid a repeat of the opposition that mounted after the zoning of presiding officers of the National Assembly.
He said, “Of course, the chairman said that but they haven’t done it. They are doing broad consultations to avoid what happened when they zoned the presiding officers’ position.
“There was hue and cry against the decision which almost cost the party, especially in the Senate where our candidate, Godswill Akpabio, escaped almost by the whiskers.”
It was gathered that the South West without a presiding officer in the House like North West and South East is not keen about the position as there are permutations for the Senate Leader to emerge from the zone which has the president.
A ranking lawmaker from the zone who craved anonymity said just as the last Senate Leader was from North West where former President Muhammadu Buhari hails from, the South West is positioned for Senate Leader; hence, someone from the same zone may not vie for House Leader.
He stated: “The last two Senate Leaders, Senators Yahaya Abdullahi and Ibrahim Gobir, were both from the North West geopolitical zone. It is therefore given that the next one would come from the South West as President Tinubu. Consequently, a House Leader would definitely not come from the South West.”
For the North-East, a frontline aspirant for the Speakership position who withdrew at the eleventh hour, Muktar Betara (Borno), and the co-chairman of the Joint Task Force in the 10th Assembly, Usman Bello Kumo (Gombe), whose group championed the campaign of Abbas/Kalu joint ticket, are nursing the ambition for House Leader.
In the North-Central, two contenders for the Speakership seat who also stepped down at different intervals, Yusuf Adamu Gagdi (Plateau) and Abdulraheem Olawuyi (Kwara), are eyeing the House Leader position.
The deputy Majority leader in the 9th House, Akpatason and Julius Ihonvbere, both from Edo, are warming up to clinch the House leadership position from South South. Both had jettisoned their seputy speakership ambitions for Kalu.
Informed sources told LEADERSHIP that Betara who was the main challenger before stepping down for Abbas had opted to retain the position of chairman of the Appropriation Committee which he held in the 9th, but that does not seem possible.
According to the sources, some lawmakers, especially from South West who had worked for Abbas before the withdrawal of the Borno lawmaker, positioned themselves for the juicy position.
The sources said, “While Betara was left with the option of emerging as House Leader and was already making moves to get the position, Kumo, the leader of the group that worked for Abbas, is also indicating interest in the position. That makes it a struggle between the Borno and Gombe lawmakers.”
For Gagdi, the source said he was eyeing the position on the grounds that the North Central was shortchanged in the power sharing formula in the National Assembly.
On the other hand, Olawuyi based his ambition on the fact that he was among the first aspirants who respected the party’s choice and stepped down for Abbas.
Similarly, LEADERSHIP gathered that both Akpatason and Ihonvbere are contending for the House Leader on grounds that they stepped down for Kalu who emerged unanimously and for the minorities in the Niger Delta region to also have a voice in the Green Chamber.
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