Buhari, Oyegun Meet This Week on Zoning

National Chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja    

Following the failure of the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to reach a consensus on the zoning of principal political offices for the incoming administration, President-elect Muhammadu Buhari and the National Chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, will be meeting this week to arrive at a formula that will be adopted by the party.

A party chieftain, who spoke to THISDAY on the issue last night, said in the first instance, Buhari and Oyegun would meet to decide on either to set up a lean committee that would make recommendations on the zoning of offices or decide on the zoning themselves and make it binding on the APC.

However, the source said that as Buhari and Oyegun prepare to meet, of paramount consideration would be the push from groups within the party, which have canvassed for the Senate presidency to be zoned to the North-east and the speakership of the House of Representatives to be zoned to another geopolitical section of the country other than the South-west.

They have premised their argument on a number of factors, chief of which are concerns over the influence of the National Leader of the APC, Senator Bola Tinubu, and the independence of former Kwara State Governor, Senator Bukola Saraki, who is from the North-central zone and a frontline contender for the post of the Senate president.
In the case of Tinubu, the groups are also insisting that the South-west already has the vice-presidency and therefore it would be an overkill if the same region gets the speakership of the House.

In addition, the group considers Saraki too independent-minded and not sufficiently malleable, thus making his bid for the Senate presidency unattractive to those whose preference would be to see the post going to the North-east.

But as the groups championing that the Senate presidency be zoned to the North-east continue to push their case, those in favour of the North-central geopolitical zone, revealed the party source, have maintained that it would be in the interest of APC to zone the post to their zone.

“The North-central zone voted massively for Buhari, and in so doing, aligned with the core North for the first time in several years. So the zone needs to be encouraged and compensated to retain their support,” the party source explained.

He further revealed that the South-south and South-east zones have also made it abundantly clear that they must not be sidelined by the APC as it takes a decision on the zoning formula for key offices.
“There is also the push from the South-south and South-east, which cannot be ignored. They have made it clear that they cannot be sidelined and must get something significant, as ignoring both zones could lead to needless tension in the future.

“So all these issues will be tabled and factored when arriving at the zoning formula by Buhari and Oyegun,” the APC chieftain informed THISDAY.

The APC held a series of meetings last week to arrive at a formula on the distribution of key offices in the country.

Prior to the meetings, speculation was rife that the Senate presidency had been zoned to the North-central geopolitical zone, the Speakership was to go to the South-west zone, Deputy Senate President was to go to the North-east, Deputy Speaker to the South-south zone, while the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) was to be allocated to the South-east zone.

However, owing to the strong lobby by various interests in the APC, a stalemate ensued, preventing the party from agreeing on a zoning formula that was satisfactory to all sides.