10th N’Assembly: House Minority Members-elect Convene Tuesday

Udora Orizu in Abuja

The minority caucuses of members-elect in the House of Representatives comprising the opposition parties of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP); Labour Party (LP); African Democratic Congress (ADC); All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA); Social Democratic Party (SDP); and Young People’s Party (YPP) will  meet on Tuesday to deliberate on the speakership of the 10th House.

The caucus which described themselves as “Greater Majority” are confident that with their numerical strength of 183 members, they can decide who becomes the Speaker.

In a notice signed by the group convener Hon. Fred Agbedi and Co-conveners, Hon. Nicholas Mutu, Hon. Wole Oke and Hon. Kingsley Chinda, the meeting will be held on May 2nd, at Transcorp Hilton, 7pm.

In a related development, Ohaneze Ndigbo Worldwide has appealed to the President-Elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to prevail on the Senate to amend their standing rules through invoking a doctrine of necessity that will allow first timers a place in the contest of the presidency of the 10th national assembly.

The secretary-general of the group, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro who made the appeal in a statement said that though there are other qualified ranking senators from the south east geopolitical zone for the office of the 10th Senate President, the outgoing governor of Ebonyi State and senator-elect for Ebonyi South senatorial district, Dave Umahi was the most suitable.

He said that Umahi’s senate presidency will be strategic in Tinubu’s government to end insecurity and the sit-at-home trend in the south east.

He said: “Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide is looking at what Igbos will benefit from the office of the senate president if a Southeasterner emerges as no. 3 citizen. The question on our lips are, who will emerge as the Senate President from the east and the insecurity in the southeast will cease, the Biafra violent agitations will cease, the sit-at-home will cease, and the creation of an additional state which Ohanaeze has already projected to the federal government, the creation of Aba State will be actualized?

“These are the things we are looking at and Ndigbo had weighed the personalities and dispositions of those jostling for the position of the Senate President and had settled down for a person whose utterances, conduct, and actions will not be in contraction and conflict with the collective interests of Ndigbo and that of the Executive arm of Government, and Ndigbo want the Senate to use its powers to apply the doctrine of necessity and bend its rules and allow a first-timer to emerge as Senate President from the Southeast.

“If Sen. Godswill Akpabio became a majority leader as a first-timer in 2015 under PDP, why can’t the rules be bent to allow the chairman, southeast governors forum, who is the political leader of the southeast by his position as chairman of southeast governors forum to emerge as the Senate President in the person of Governor Dave Umahi? Without Igbo in the presidency, at the legislative arm of good, at the judiciary, without Igbo in the top 5 or top 6, the political leadership of Ndigbo revert to the forum and their chairman becomes the political leader of the Igbo nation.”