{"id":419416,"date":"2011-05-07T23:33:24","date_gmt":"2011-05-07T23:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/05\/07\/reps-speaker-the-odds-against-seast-favours-swest\/"},"modified":"2011-05-07T23:33:24","modified_gmt":"2011-05-07T23:33:24","slug":"reps-speaker-the-odds-against-seast-favours-swest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/07\/reps-speaker-the-odds-against-seast-favours-swest\/","title":{"rendered":"Reps speaker: The odds against S\/East, favours S\/West"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

*North-West may get deputy speaker
* Bode George okays retention of current zoning arrangement<\/p>\n

By Henry Umoru, Abdulwahab Abdulah & Dapo Akinrefon<\/strong><\/p>\n

THERE were very strong indications yesterday that the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, at\u00a0 its\u00a0 meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan during his retreat at Obudu Ranch, Cross River State, may have knocked out the\u00a0 South-East from the race for the speaker of the House of Representatives for the 7th Assembly on religious ground.<\/p>\n

It was gathered that since the PDP caucus is considering a Muslim for the speakership, the\u00a0 coast is almost\u00a0 clear for the South-West to retain the position.<\/p>\n

According to the arrangement, because the North-Central is tipped to retain\u00a0 the position of the Senate president with Senator David Mark being the most favoured and being a Christian, the president a Christian, vice president a Muslim, the equation would then be balanced with a Muslim speaker.<\/p>\n

The office of the deputy speaker, with the zoning formula reportedly agreed at\u00a0 the Obudu meeting, is earmarked for the North-West, the North-East gets the office of the national chairman of the PDP, while the South-East gets the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and deputy Senate president.<\/p>\n

Also ahead of the composition of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, and Boards of federal establishments, the leadership of the PDP has written to state chapters of the party to submit ten names each for consideration.<\/p>\n

Sunday Vanguard gathered\u00a0 that the letters, signed by the deputy national secretary, Dr. Musa Babayo,\u00a0 have already been dispatched to the states.<\/p>\n

According to a source, the letters,\u00a0 addressed to the state party chairmen, were\u00a0 copied state governors that have governors on the platform of the PDP, just as some stakeholders of the party in the states among whom are members of the Board of Trustees, BoT, former governors, members of the National Executive Committee, NEC, national vice chairmen of the zones, among others, are also expected to make inputs into who makes the list from the states.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a\u00a0 deputy national chairman of the\u00a0 PDP, Chief Olabode George, says\u00a0 the adoption of the current\u00a0 zoning of the nation\u2019s top political offices will guarantee\u00a0 peaceful co-existence.<\/p>\n

Also, contrary to the allegation that he is fighting former President Olusegun Obasanjo,\u00a0 George said\u00a0 he bears no grudge against him, saying, however, that\u00a0 he was shocked\u00a0 that\u00a0 Obasanjo could publicly deny\u00a0 him\u00a0 by saying he is a criminal, when he knew he (Bode George) committed no crime.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Sunday Vanguard, the PDP chieftain said the party has a tradition of shifting the top\u00a0 political offices\u00a0 whenever the office of the president emerges from any part of the country.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cTraditionally, the culture of the party is that there are six positions that are always zoned. The office of the president, vice-president, Senate president, the speaker of the House of Representatives, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the national chairman of the party, which is also in line with the six geo-political zones.<\/p>\n

That is why you see the past leaders of the party sharing the offices to\u00a0 guarantee the unity of the country. This has made the democracy of the party and that of the country to last till this moment. That is why we called it \u2018Turn by Turn Nigeria Limited.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commenting on his relationship with Obasanjo, he said, \u201cI do not bear any grudge against Baba Obasanjo, but I was shocked to my bone marrow when he was responding to allegations of corruption against me which was a political conspiracy against my person. Well, when the time comes, everything will be made public.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Comments are moderated. Please keep them clean and brief.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Original post:
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*North-West may get deputy speaker * Bode George okays retention of current zoning arrangement By Henry Umoru, Abdulwahab Abdulah & Dapo Akinrefon THERE were very strong indications yesterday that the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, at\u00a0 its\u00a0 meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan during his retreat at Obudu Ranch, Cross River State, may have knocked out the\u00a0 South-East from the race for the speaker of the House of Representatives for the 7th Assembly on religious ground. It was gathered that since the PDP caucus is considering a Muslim for the speakership, the\u00a0 coast is almost\u00a0 clear for the South-West to retain the position. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":413529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-419416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"yoast_head":"\nReps speaker: The odds against S\/East, favours S\/West - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/07\/reps-speaker-the-odds-against-seast-favours-swest\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Reps speaker: The odds against S\/East, favours S\/West - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"*North-West may get deputy speaker * Bode George okays retention of current zoning arrangement By Henry Umoru, Abdulwahab Abdulah & Dapo Akinrefon THERE were very strong indications yesterday that the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, at\u00a0 its\u00a0 meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan during his retreat at Obudu Ranch, Cross River State, may have knocked out the\u00a0 South-East from the race for the speaker of the House of Representatives for the 7th Assembly on religious ground. 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