Power sharing: South-East loses speaker position

Posted by admin House, Legislature, South-East Sunday, May 8th, 2011

There were strong indications that the South-East has lost out in its bid to produce the next Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) caucus in the zone has recently be making a strong bid for the position, owing its impressive performance in the just-concluded election. After the South-South, the South-East contributed the largest number of votes to President Goodluck Jonathan in the April 16 presidential election.

A source within the South-East caucus of the PDP confirmed to Daily Sun that the party’s top herieachy would be sticking to the present power sharing formula. The implication being that the President of the Senate, Senator David Mark, who hails from the North Central, is likely to retain his position while the South-West would still hold on to the position of Speaker. This is regardless of the fact that the PDP lost almost all the National Assembly seats, including that of the outgoing Speaker, Dimeji Bankole, it is presently occupying in the South-West to the rival Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) during last general elections.

Under the new arrangement, the South-East would now produce the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF). The source said the National Working Committee (NWC) of the ruling PDP would meet tomorrow to ratify the arrangement. Daily Sun reliably gathered that the major thing used to edge out the South-East in its bid to head the lower chamber of the National Assembly was religion. Our source said the argument was that since both the President and Senate President are Christians, it would not be proper to give the position of the House of Representatives to a Christian. Hence, the decision of the party to cede the position to a Muslim from the South-West.

Apparently dis-satisfied with the arrangement, the source wondered why the position of Senate President was not given to a Muslim in the North or the position of Senate President zoned to the South-East, so that a Muslim from the North gets the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

It was also gathered that the South-East PDP has accepted to produce the SGF instead of the Speaker which it had wanted on the condition that the party caucus in the zone would pick anybody of its choice. The zone had earlier rejected the position because of speculations that former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, was plotting to impose a former Minister of Foreign Affairs , Chief Ojo Maduekwe as the South-East choice for the position of SGF.

The source also said the South-East caucus accepted to forgo the position of Speaker with the consolation that the zone would produce the vice presidential candidate of the PDP in 2015, who may possibly become the party’s presidential candidate in 2019 or 2023 as the case maybe. However, as at Press time, it was not clear whether the South-East would stil produce the National Chairman of the PDP.

-Sunwp_posts