APC NWC fails to allocate seats for N’Assembly leadership

At its meeting on Wednesday in Abuja, the National Working Committee of the All Progressives Congress was unable to reach a consensus regarding the allocation of the senate presidency and speakership of the 10th National Assembly.

Senator Abdullahi Adamu, the National Chairman of the APC, revealed that the NWC could not make a decision on the zoning arrangement without the input of the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who was away in Port Harcourt at the time of the meeting to inaugurate some projects carried out by the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike.

Adamu presided over the four-hour meeting, which got underway at around 1 pm, and no fewer than 18 of the NWC’s 24 members were present.

The discussion was supposed to put to rest rumours about the region that would produce the 10th National Assembly’s top officials.

While the lawmakers from the South-East and South-South thought it was fair to give their regions the Senate Presidency, their Northern counterparts are adamant that only the criteria of competence and experience mattered.

After the discussion was over, the chairman addressed the media and revealed that they had a significant discussion, further demonstrating how strong and unified the party leadership is.

The result of our four-hour meeting, according to Adamu, was that we emerged stronger and more unified than ever. The National Assembly’s zoning, which some of you have inquired about, is not the main topic of today’s meeting. We don’t just go as a party when we want to do zoning.

“Zoning is to bring along Ahmed Bola Tinubu, the president-elect, who is the person with the mandate of the nation. He must travel with us. He left after the elections and didn’t return until last week. He must be carried by us.

Additionally, we are powerless to stop ambitious people with regional, personal, or institutional interests. We can’t refute them. We need to come up with a persuasive strategy to achieve some level of consensus as long as that is the case. We are focusing on that at the moment. This is not a one-day event.

In a similar vein, when asked about the outcome of the NWC meeting, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, reaffirmed the chairman’s views.

Morka added that a committee made up of five of the six zonal chairmen of the NWC has been established to settle the ongoing dispute between Adamu and Lukman and to address the issues brought up by the Kaduna politician.

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Among the many topics covered at the meeting, he continued, “We look at some internal and domestic housekeeping matters with a colleague you know who has voiced his concerns about something he believes the party should be doing. We gave it careful thought.

“A committee that was formed to finish that conversation is working right now, as we speak. Therefore, there is still a meeting in progress that I am supposed to attend in order to completely rectify that discussion and provide a final set of recommendations regarding it.

“However, I’m happy to report that the party is united behind the leadership of Senator Abdullahi Adamu, our party’s national chairman. We are all united in our position. The worries expressed by our colleague (Lukman) are being investigated. And I believe that when the time is right, we will draw very clear conclusions from those discussions.

Morka responded that it wasn’t deliberate as had been assumed when asked to explain why the ruling party was delaying the choice regarding the zoning of the Senate presidency, speaker, and other major offices.

We are not wasting time, he continued. There is no deadline for doing this. The party is responsible for zoning. It is a method by which the party can make choices and allows those who are interested in vying for the position of leader of the 10th National Assembly to do so smoothly and without much enmity.

“There is no timetable for that, then. We are not rushing. We want to execute it properly. The chairman also mentioned that it required extremely thorough consultation. Not just from the party’s leadership, but also from those who are aspiring, in order to ensure that whatever formula the party comes up with will be accepted with the least amount of friction. The consultation must be conducted, and it must be conducted properly. That is what is occuring at the moment.

According to several sources who shared more information about the party’s plans for the zoning of National Assembly offices, the APC intended to persuade ambitious aspirants to settle for the consensus option.

According to a source, the party leadership only discussed the leadership crisis in the APC South-South, consensus candidates in place of zoning, and an appeal for the National Vice Chairman for the North-West, Mallam Salihu Lukman, to spare the party from embarrassment by dropping his lawsuit despite the lengthy agenda that was not made available to any member of the National Working Committee until minutes before the meeting began.

Adamu and Iyiola Omisore, the APC National Secretary, had been sued by Lukman for violating the party constitution.

The National Legal Adviser, Ahmad El-Marzuq, also sent Adamu a legal opinion four days ago that appeared to be a countermove, recommending harsh punishment for Lukman, including expulsion for taking the party to court.

Another source reported that the crucial meeting, which lasted four hours, was extremely tense. Lukman was eventually asked to drop the lawsuit and apologise to the other party. His expression when he left the meeting was clear evidence that he wasn’t happy with the choice.

“However, a committee to mediate peace between the warring parties has been established. The topic of zoning was briefly discussed as well, but from what I understand, they decided to meet with Asiwaju in order to persuade him to persuade the lawmakers running for various positions to allow the party to choose consensus candidates.

Salihu Mustapha, the National Vice Chairman of the APC for the North-East, told reporters that Lukman has agreed to drop his lawsuit against Adamu and Omisore in order to restore peace.

According to Mustapha, the ruling APC will no longer tolerate indiscipline from any party member or supporter in light of the recent string of events.

“We are here to inform you of the proceedings we had after the national working committee,” he said. “We had intimate consultations with our brother, the National Vice Chairman North West, Comrade Salihu Lukman, on issues you are aware of, like the legal action and some other publications credited to him. We can reach the resolution that this suit is going to be withdrawn, and he has unconditionally offered his apology for any seeming embarrassment this his suit and

We want to reaffirm that we are a single, cohesive committee and that we intend to keep working together in order to realise all the ideals of the ideal working committee or ideal party.

We will make decisions using the party’s tools because parties are managed administratively, not on the pages of newspapers or the screens of television, and we will keep doing that as a single house.