The National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Abdullahi Adamu acknowledged on Thursday that aspirants for various offices in the 10th National Assembly were not consulted before deciding on zoning.
Adamu spoke at the APC national secretariat in Abuja during a meeting with aggrieved aspirants for the senate presidency, who expressed their dissatisfaction with the zoning arrangement.
Naija News recalls that APC had chosen former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio, and Senator Barau Jibrin as preferred candidates for the senate presidency and deputy senate presidency of the upcoming 10th assembly, as well as Tajudeen Abbas and Ben Kalu for speakership and deputy respectively.
Addressing the concerned senate presidency contenders, Adamu promised that the party would review the zoning arrangement where necessary, but emphasized that the party’s National Working Committee could not decide without the input of President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
He said, “Yesterday (Wednesday) we received members of the lower chamber who are also contesting for the speakership in the lower chamber and we had similar pronouncements – words of disagreement from them.
“What we will not do today from what we have received from you is to start to open any discussion with you at this sitting.
“Yes, there were no sufficient or adequate consultations with you who are contesting, and it is a simple principle of democracy that you get views and opinions.
“But the circumstances that we found ourselves in after the elections frustrated our desire. We must as democrats open up. So, we will go back to the drawing board.
“We owe our party that duty to take a look, whether what was done cannot be changed; what was done needs some changes or reviews. We will take a look at what is necessary by the grace of God.
“Hold the fire until the last word is heard from us. We are the custodians of the party as NWC, but we are not acting alone. The voice of the president-elect is an essential voice. We must accommodate him the best we can.
“I will not compromise on that. So, he is right now outside the country, and by the grace of God when he comes back, we will go back to the drawing board and put our heads together again and see what we will get.
“I cannot preempt that, I will wait until we hold that meeting with the President-elect, the same team that we had the same meeting with. If we need to enlarge the committee, we will do, so we will better be informed through contributions that will be made.
“We will go through your memo, line by line, and ensure that we are able to capture the spirit of your presentation and see what will be the best way out of the situation we have.
“Whatever you heard is the art of human endeavour, and we are not perfect as human beings. We can make mistakes. So, if we find in the course of further consultations the mistakes that need to be looked at, we will look at them.
“The important thing is that the spirit of the party must be kept alive. We just came out of elections, and the whole country looking towards us. We are just counting down to the inauguration on the 29th of this month.”
Some of the aggrieved lawmakers in attendance include a former Governor of Abia State, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu; a former Governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari; Senator Sani Musa (Niger), among others.