Written by Jacob Segun Olatunji, Taiwo Adisa and Adewale Ajayi Monday, 13 June 2011
THE leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has ratified an adjusted zoning arrangement, which indicates that the South-South geopolitical zone has been allocated the Majority Leader positions in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
It was gathered that a caucus meeting featuring top leaders of the party had last week agreed to the zoning arrangement, which would also see the North-East taking Chief Whip position in the Senate, while the South-West will get the same post in the House of Representatives.
Sources confirmed that the PDP had also proposed that the zones that lost out in the zoning arrangement as a result of the election of Honourable Aminu Tambuwal as Speaker of the House of Representatives should be further taken care of in the allocation of standing committees of the two chambers.
Sources confirmed that Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN) will be named the Senate Leader, while Honourable Friday Itulah would be named the Leader of the House of Representatives.
It was learnt that ranking rule in the Senate favours Ndoma-Egba, who was Deputy Leader in the last Senate. He is a three-term member of the Senate.
The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), however, said on Sunday that it was sticking to the choice of Senator George Akume as the Senate Minority Leader.
A statement by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, denied any crisis in the choice of the Minority Leaders of the Senate. The party has 18 senators as against seven from the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), seven from the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC); four from the Labour Party (LP) and one each from the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP).
The statement indicated that a June 8 meeting of the minority parties had agreed that the three leading opposition parties will share the four principal officer positions available to the opposition. It indicated that the ACN had picked Senator George Akume as Minority Leader, Senator Ganiyu Solomon as Minority Whip. The ANPP, according to the statement, agreed to pick Senator Ahmed Yerima as Deputy Minority Leader, while the CPC picked Senator Abu Ibrahim as Deputy Minority Whip.
“Those who will occupy the various posts have been chosen unanimously by the Senate minority caucus, at a fruitful and friendly meeting, and no one who craves peace and harmony in the seventh Senate dares reject such leaders, as has been insinuated by those sponsoring such negative stories,’’ the ACN said.
The statement, however, warned that if anyone moved to reverse the decision of the minority parties, it might destabilise the Senate.
“Following the agreement, the parties were asked to bring their nominees, who were unanimously approved by the minority caucus as follows: ACN (Senator George Akume as Minority Leader and Senator Ganiyu Solomon as Minority Whip); ANPP (Senator Ahmed Yerima as Deputy Minority Leader) and CPC (Senator Abu Ibrahim as Deputy Minority Whip),” the party said.
It rejected the claim that the choice of Senator Akume would not be acceptable to the whole Senate, because they both hail from the same state.
In another development, Senator Akume had, at the weekend, congratulated the president of the Senate, Senator David Mark, on his election as Senate president for a second time.
Akume, in a letter he signed and addressed to the Senate President, said that he was ready to work with Mark for the progress of the Senate.
Meanwhile, President Goodluck Jonathan is said to be considering how to share the political, elective and party offices in a way that would pacify the South-West and North-East, after the emergence of Honourable Tambuwal as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, contrary to the zoning arrangement.
A presidency source told the Nigerian Tribune in Abuja, on Sunday, that President Jonathan, who believed in the rule of law and due process, upon arriving in the country on Friday night, had resolved to hold consultations with all stakeholders involved in the matter, with a view to resolving the issue at stake.
This is coming just as leaders of the party in the North-East and the South-West were making efforts to get their share in the new scheme of things, following the jettisoning of the zoning formula with the election of Honourable Tambuwal as speaker.
Nigerian Tribune learnt that since the president’s arrival from the United States, various interest groups had been seeking audience with him on how to resolve the problem of the zoning system.