10th NASS: No consultation on zoning, I’ll contest until very last minute – Ogah

Hon. Chinedu Ogah, who represents the Ezza South/Ikwo Federal Constituency of Ebonyi State in the House of Representatives, has stated that there was no consultation with the party regarding the zoning of the presiding officers for the 10th session of the House of Representatives.

Ogah, who is running for the position of Deputy Speaker, has promised to continue campaigning on the House floor after the inauguration of the 10th House of Representatives until the very last possible moment.

In an interview that took place on Wednesday in Abuja, a lawmaker-elect who will be a ranking member criticized the practice of micro-zoning the office of the Deputy Speakership to a specific person and insisted that this practise has never been implemented.

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According to him, before the Party takes a position, there will always be consultation with members-elect, but the APC leadership made a decision, and it got to them through Facebook. They noted that the decision was unacceptable.

According to what he had to say, “The Deputy Speakership of the 10th House of Representatives as it was zoned to the South East by the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, I am qualified in all ramifications as a ranking member and we are three according to the rules of the National Assembly.”

“I am a founding member of the APC, and if our party zoned the position, we have to be called,” said the candidate. At the meeting that we held in the Villa, the Vice President-elect recommended that all of us wait until after the supplementary election before making any decisions. We were not called until we started seeing something about the supplementary election on Facebook after the supplementary election.

He shared his conviction that the party and the incoming president will contact party members in advance of the inauguration day to discuss the matter.

The lawmaker continued to explain how the former National Chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole, called a meeting of members-elect in 2019, which led to the emergence of Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila and others. He added that this one should not be different from the others in that regard.

“We are going to be called upon if our party is going to zone presiding officers. I will never forget the events that took place during the tenure of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as National Chairman that resulted in the election of Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila as Speaker of the House.

“Oshiomhole called a meeting, then Hon. Idris Wase was contesting, and Hon. Betara was contesting, and there was a kind of written agreement to have Femi as the consensus of the party,” Oshiomhole said. Wase was going to serve as his deputy, while Betara was going to run for chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. The party issued a statement with a unified front and quickly communicated their decision to the media.

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I am confident in asserting that I am the only person who made an effort to campaign for our party in the South East. Examine the outcomes in 2019 as well as in 2023. It is not the case when an individual has 15 votes in his polling unit. We can all participate in the competition. In light of this, I intend to debate the matter on the floor of the chamber,” he announced.