The All Progressives Congress (APC) National Working Committee (NWC) intends to open the race for the 10th National Assembly’s leadership positions.
Remember that the party had declared Senator Jibrin Barau (North West) as its preferred candidate for Deputy Senate President in the 10th Assembly and Senator Godswill Akpabio (South-South) as its consensus choice for Senate presidency.
Additionally, the APC chose Benjamin Kalu (South East) as its top choice for Deputy Speaker and Tajudeen Abbas (North West) as its consensus choice for Speaker of the House of Representatives.
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However, lawmakers-elect who had stated their desire to run for the top positions reacted angrily to the zoning plan published by the ruling party.
According to sources who spoke to Newsmen on Wednesday, the APC NWC is urging Bola Tinubu, the president-elect, to declare the election open because it believes that its proposed zoning may be foiled.
The APC stalwart added that the party’s leadership had learned that the G-6, a group of disgruntled candidates, had already chosen a consensus candidate.
He said: “It appears the National Working Committee is suspicious that their plan may not go as planned and that is why they are recommending a free contest.
“Secretly, they have recommended a free contest because they (NWC) have intelligence that the G-6 aspirants have already adopted a consensus candidate among themselves but they have not revealed the identity of that person.
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“The G-6 aspirants are confusing the party, the Gbaja boys are also confused because they don’t know who they are throwing up.”
According to a different source, the G-6 candidates for speakership may have decided to choose a deputy speaker from the South-South geopolitical zone.
He said: “Secondly, they have got concrete information that the G-6 is going to the South-South to pick their deputy.”
A lawmaker-elect also spoke, urging the party leadership to take action right once to fix the zoning arrangement and prevent a party crisis from developing.
The APC leader further disclosed that there is reliable information indicating that the G-6’s G-6 hopefuls have already established an agreement with the opposition parties.
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He said: “There are issues and they need to be confronted because the more we delay in solving the issues once and for all, the more we keep on having fresh ones.
“For instance, we have credible intelligence that the aggrieved aspirants who have formed the G-6 are already in an alliance with the opposition parties.
“Initially, we thought it was not going to work but we gathered credible information that they swore to themselves not to betray one another and went ahead to concede the deputy speakership slot to the opposition parties.
“We first considered it an act of indiscipline and anti-party but in a second thought, we needed to be smart to throw the contest open to all aspirants. Whoever wins at every point is after all a party man.
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“Some suggested that they should be sanctioned but we looked at the bigger picture because we must learn from experience as party administrators. What are the consequences for those aspirants? And what are those consequences on the party as a whole?
“So, the message the party chairman gave to Senator Akpabio and his team when they visited was a coded message. It is left for them to decode it because it is difficult to do another rejoinder to repudiate what we had said earlier on zoning.
“More importantly, our initial thought was that the aggrieved aspirants would quickly adopt someone amongst them but they are also smart enough not to do so for now.
“That keeps the suspense high and it will be risky to allow them to do the damage by allying with the opposition parties swiftly on the floor of the parliament that day.
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“Of course, we know too well that most of the people milling around Akpabio or Abbas are playing politics. So, what is the guarantee that all are with us?
“So we have decided to slow down and lower our tone on streamlining to individuals; let all those interested come out to contest because if we don’t allow that to happen, the gang up of the aggrieved APC aspirants and the opposition will be too risky for us.”
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