Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
A group, under the auspices of All Progressives Congress (APC) South-East Renaissance, has told the national leadership of the ruling party to zone the House of Representatives speakership position to the South East geopolitical zone to curb the spate of agitations in the zone.
The convener of the group, Chris-lance Onyemechara, argued that allowing the South East to produce the speaker will not only balance the power equation in the country but also give them a sense of belonging capable of reducing the agitations.
“In 2015, the APC denied the South-East principal-office positions in the National Assembly on the grounds that we did not have a ranking member on the APC platform. Four years after, we have produced two ranking members and now our party seems set to shift the goal post again.
“From established political norms and antecedents, in the spirit of natural justice and equity, what we thought our party would have naturally bequeathed us the Senate President or the speaker of the House of Representatives. “However, now that the party, in its wisdom, has decided to zone the Senate President position to the North-East, we strongly believe that the just and equitable thing for our party to do, is to zone the speakership of the House of Representatives to the South-East. Instead, what we see rattles our sense of justice and distorts the pattern of fair sharing as intended by the Federal Character clause in the constitution.
“A situation where the same geopolitical zone which produced the Vice President of the country and the National leader of our party, is seen scheming and demanding, with a bloated sense of entitlement, the Speakership of the House of Representatives, smacks of political avarice, brazen injustice and grave disservice to good conscience.
For so many of us across the old Eastern Region who have already bought into the President Muhammadu Buhari’s core political ideals, no level of gerrymandering or political shenanigans can shake us off now! And we can state without a jot of equivocation that we believe in this nation, its unity and oneness. There is no region of this country that is more Nigerian than the people of the South-East. And this is evidenced by our spread and investment in every state of the federation.
“Nevertheless, our belief in this country, its unity and growth should not come at the cost of the exclusion of a vital section of this country the South-East. It is lamentable that a few elements in the party who are yet to fully align with Mr. President’s reassurances after his re-election, that he will run an all-inclusive government, have continued to put up actions that tend to lend credence to the activities of a few agitators in the South-East. They have readily supplied fodders for their cannons,” the group said.
“I bring to you the valid concerns of a people and give voice to the utter trepidation of more than 20 million Nigerians of South-East extraction spread across the country. Many of these people love this country so dearly and have invested in this country with their blood and sweat. They are eager to integrate into the mainstream as development partners of the ruling APC, but we always find ways to throw up walls of barrier in their faces. We hardly ever give them a fair deal!
“Such harsh scenarios saw our forefathers opting out of the union with such firm resolve that they were willing to go to war to challenge injustice, even at the cost of millions of lives. Many did not desire war, but the system left them little or no choice.
“We can say unequivocally that zoning the speakership to the South East will not only balance the political equation but also give us a sense of belonging capable of stopping the agitation in the zone,” the group argued.