From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
House of Representatives opposition members-elect, also known as ‘Greater Majority”, has said that it will consult opposition governors, as well as other critical stakeholders, before deciding on who to support for the speaker and deputy speaker positions in the 10th assembly.
The coalition, which consists of members of the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP), Labour Party, New Nigeria Peoples Party ( NNPP), Social Democratic Party ( SDP), All Progressives Grand Alliance ( APGA), Young Progressives Party ( YPP) and African Democratic Congress ( ADC), also said it has started consultations with the leadership of the opposition parties, ahead of the June 13 inauguration of the House.
The convener of the coalition, Fred Agbedi, who stated this, ,at a meeting of the opposition lawmakers-elect, in Abuja, said though there are misconception in certain quarters, the Greater Majority has not endorsed any of the speakership aspirant.
According to him, “let me quickly say that, if we must get it right, if we must do the right thing, if we must actually represent our people, we would need to be guided and to be guided would mean that we need to interact with our leaders in our constituencies. We need to interact with our colleagues from the various states, we need to interact with our parties’ stakeholders and all that in arriving at the decision that would be won for us.
” Please, your convener and conveners and other leaders have not either on your own behalf or with you adopted anybody for the office of Presiding Officers. Please. That would only take place when that agreement is reached by all of us.
” That decision would be our collective decision. I am even saying that before we get to that decision, we are going to ensure that, for example I come from Bayelsa, I should be able to speak with my governor, I should be able to speak with my party leaders, so that whatever I am keying into, is with the understanding that my stakeholders are on the same page with me and that is what for some of us, we expect of all us to do so that we do not ambush Mr A or ambush Mrs B or ambush Miss C.
‘ And so I want to assure you and promise you that we will lead ourselves to arrive at a collective decisions and in doing that, we have also resolved that we should have state coordinators who are also going to meet at their different state levels. Eventually, we are also going to have zonal coordinators, who will also meet at the zonal levels with the various states in collating what decisions that we are going to finally come out with after due consultations.”
” And that is why we have invited all of us to this meeting, this interaction. So that we all know who and who will coordinate our states and then also who and who would coordinate our zones, so that we leave the responsibility back to you, interact, consult and then we meet again and know the direction to go.
” In addition, we are also going to have a retreat. Of course, about today we would have proceeded for the retreat if not for some slight changes. But tentatively, we are looking at the end of the month to the first one or two days (in June) that will be confirmed by stakeholders. We have spoken to the PDP leadership. We have spoken to the Labour Party leadership.
“We have spoken to the NNPP leadership. And they are all aware that we intend to have a retreat and they have pledged that they would love to be part of it, to speak to us. Let me be specific: we have visited the PDP national chairman and the national working committee. We have visited the presidential candidate of the Labour Party and some of the officers of the party. We have also visited the NNPP presidential candidate. ”