Yusuf Gagdi, an aspirant for the speakership position in the 10th House of Representatives has called out the All Progressives Congress (APC) over its zoning formula ahead of the inauguration on Monday, May 29.
Recall that the APC National Working Committee endorsed Senator Godswill Akpabio from the South-South for Senate President and Senator Barau Jibrin from the North-West for the post of Deputy Senate President. Speaker of the House of Representatives was proposed to Abbass Tajudeen from the North-West, while Benjamin Kalu from the South-East was preferred for the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Reacting to the zoning, the Plateau lawmaker-elect said the APC short-changed his geopolitical zone, North-Central, which he said is the only zone with no representation.
Speaking during an interview on Channels Television, Gagdi said;
“How can you have representation from all the geopolitical zones in Nigeria except one that has done well for the party? The North-Central is not represented there and the North-Central has five state governors. We won five states in addition to that fact that from 2015 there is no state that has not produced two term governor for the APC.
“At one time or another, the North-Central geopolitical zone has had eight years of APC administration from 2015 till date, is that a zone that you will say you will not zone anything to?”
Gagdi also said that his agitation is more about fairness, justice and equity more than his personal ambition of becoming the 10th Speaker of the House of Representatives.
He added;
“It’s not even about me; it’s about fairness, it’s about equity, it’s about justice, one of the presiding officers should be in the North-West as our bother’s keepers, then the other one should be in the North-Central. It will mean that there will be a trinity of representation in terms of offices that have capacity.
“They have now left the North-Central without any of the elective presiding offices and all the presiding officers that have been given to Northern Nigeria is given to one zone and we begin to ask ourselves, has our performance to the election of the President (Elect) been belittled? If any Nigerian thinks that having Deputy Senate President and Speaker from North-West is okay then he is not being fair.”
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