The North East Women and Youth Initiative For Good Governance has thrown its weight behind the candidacy of Nkeiruka Onyejeocha for the speakership of the 9th House of Representatives.
The group, comprising various women and youth associations, while enlisting the support of Nigerians for the lawmaker, expressed dismay with the leadership of the APC national leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who they claimed has imposed Femi Gbajabiamila on the lawmakers.
Speaking weekend at a joint press conference held at Desert View Suite Conference Hall, Maiduguri, the chairman of the group, Babakaka Bukar Zanna, said it would be anti-democratic for an individual to determine the next speaker by imposing his choice on the whole country.
“We are dismayed and perplexed by the determined efforts of some political merchants to undermine the sovereign sanctity of the National Assembly and to set the country back in its quest for national integration and progress, by needlessly fomenting disaffection among the elected distinguished and honourable parliamentarians of the 9th assembly.
“We are specifically worried over the undemocratic purported endorsement of Rep Femi Gbajabiamila as sole candidate for the post of the speaker of the 9th House of Representatives by a conspiratorial section of the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) with the active support of one-time Lagos state Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“While we may not hold anything against Gbajabiamila as a person, we are nevertheless concerned about his brand of houseboy politics which at all times sways in favour of Tinubu’s unquenchable thirst for personal political ascendancy tainted by a tint of tribalism and unpatriotism.
“We consider it a collective embarrassment for a people with the full mandates of their people as parliamentary representatives to tend to strip themselves of the capacity to independently choose leaders from amongst themselves,” Babakaka said.
“We also note that the typology of the controversy over the selection process of the new NASS leadership and the dimension it has taken of recent, are a serious cause for concern to all well-meaning Nigerians and friends alike.
“We are worried that the leadership of the APC and President Muhammadu Buhari are failing to see the entrenched risk in the trap to get them to openly endorse the adoption of candidates drawn from particular zones to the exclusion of other zones of the federation with equal entitlement,” Bukar Zanna said.
He said: “If only for the sake of fairness, justice and equity, we strongly believe that the South-east is more eminently qualified for the slot of the speaker of the House of Representatives in compliance with the nation’s federal character principle.”
“And in conformity with the global poise on affirmative action, we strongly recommend that a female member of the House should be given the position.
“In this regard, after due consideration and assessment of all possible candidates from the South-east, we are convinced that Mrs Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, representing the Isuikwato/ Umunneochi federal constituency, of Abia state is by whatever criteria competent to take up that responsibility.
“Asides being a Right Honourable Gentle Woman which is also key as she could be a stabilizing factor, Mrs Onyejeocha happen to be one of the highly experienced legislators; an active member of the House since 2007 and a core parry loyalists.
