APC Meeting Ends In Deadlock Over Zoning Of National Assembly Offices

by Musa Abdullahi

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has again failed to release an approved zoing formula containing modalities for distribution of principal political offices.

It was gathered that during the party leadership meeting which ended in the wee hours of Thursday, the leaders could not completely agree on the zoning of positions being canvassed for.

Before the meeting of the APC leaders, held at the Rivers state Governors’ Lodge at Asokoro, speculations were that the party had agreed in principle on how to share the various office positions.

For instance, it was reported that the party had ceded the position of Senate President to North Central, Deputy Senate President to the North East, Speaker of the House of Representatives to the South West and Deputy Speaker to South-South.

Another report also had it that the party is under pressure to rejig the zoning to accommodate other interests, hence the decision to convene the leaders’ meeting last Wednesday.

Following the stalemate, leaders of APC shelved further deliberation on the zoning formula to allow for more consultations.

It was learnt that apart from the key principal National Assembly seats of Senate President and House of Representatives Speaker, other positions were less contentious.

A source hinted that the party leaders had to apply wisdom by shelving discussion on disagreeable areas.

The source regretted that during the discussion on the office sharing some of the leaders tried to trivialize the issue by weeping up ethnic sentiments.

“You see, some people are bringing up ethnic sentiment in the discussion about the zoning which is not proper. But we have no doubt that the matter will be resolved amicably in the end,” he said.

When contacted over the outcome of the meeting, the National Publicity Secretary of APC, Alhaji Lai Muhammed declined to give details of decisions reached.