By Meka Kema
The heightened intrigues over who takes the Speakership position of the House of Representatives is nearing a feverish pitch, as stakeholders from the South East and South-South geopolitical zones have united to back Hon. Nkiruka Onyejeocha, arguing that it her legitimate right as a Nigerian and experienced member.
Recall that the leadership of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have recently endorsed the candidature of the majority leader of the House, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila for the speakership, a development that has been criticized by many Nigerians who feel that the position should be zoned to another zone, particularly the South East or South-South, since the vice president, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo is from the same South West with Gbajabiamila.
According to those who hold the above view, it would be wrong for the APC leadership to deny the South East and the South-South any key leadership position in the National Assembly as that would amount to marginalization of the two zones.
It was therefore a mixed grill of surprise and excitement when Hon. Nkiruka Onyejeocha, a four term Representative from Abia State declared her interest for the Speaker’s position while urging the leadership of the party to support her and lobbying Gbajabiamila to step down and withdraw his ambition.
Although some leaders of the APC are not comfortable with her action which they see as a sort of rebellion, many other members of the party and most politicians from the South East and South-South have risen to applaud her declaration for the key leadership position, saying it would help to give the two zones sense of belonging the 9th Assembly as well as the central government.
While declaring for the Speaker’s position, the lawmaker had appealed to the incumbent majority leader to “make due sacrifice” by giving up on his ambition to become speaker “for Nigeria to move forward.” Hon. Onyejeocha also urged the party to have a rethink and zone the speakership to the south-east, urging Hon. Gbajabiamila to, “as a leader pay the sacrifice” for Nigeria to get to the next level.
“I respect my party chairman and what the party has said it intends to do but I am appealing to them, it is not yet late to withdraw their decision and include a woman from the two geo-political zones left out in 2015,” she said.
“I know that the leader of the house, Femi Gbajabiamila, is a good gentleman and good leader but there is a time when any man who is a leader indeed to make needed sacrifice and that time is now for the leader of my party in the House of Representatives,” she said.
In support of her ambition, some groups under the umbrella of South East/South-South Political Inclusion Forum (SSSSPIF) said Hon. Nkiruka Onyejeocha has taken the right step that would save the APC from obviously impending implosion.
Addressing the press after their meeting in Abuja on Thursday, the Chairman of the Forum, Uche Egeonu said the Forum has concluded plans to march on Abuja and Lagos very soon to drum support for Hon. Onyejeocha, adding that she has all the needed expedience and political maturity to douse the tension that is building up in the APC and the polity at large, by the plot by a few politicians to sidetrack the entire South East and South-South zones both in the 9th Assembly and the polity at large.
“There is no way you can constitute any government in Nigeria without considering the interest of the South East and the South-South. The government tried to do that in the last dispensation by ignoring the interest of South East and South-South but the Saraki/Ikekweremadu deal successfully helped to avert the planned humiliation of the two zones.
“This time, some desperate politicians are at it again, exhibiting open indifference to the feelings of the over 70 million people that populate the South East and South-South of Nigeria by allocating all leadership positions in the national assembly to other zones while asking the two zones to go to hell, if they care.
“But we are alerting the leadership of the APC that a greater shock awaits the party and the Federal Government if they fail to quickly review the zoning formula being bandied around.
“The above is because, while the APC leadership is intimidating elected lawmakers to suppress their views on the matter, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is waiting by the corner; and to strike at the last minute, with the intent to strike a deadly punch that would further humiliate the APC, if the party and its leadership continue to grandstand and feel indifferent to the political destiny of the South East and South-South people,” the Forum said.
