Don’t Compromise Your Independence, Reject APC Zoning, Group Tells Lawmakers-elect
Sunday Aborisade, in Abuja
A civil society organisation, Parliamentary Advocacy Network (PAN), yesterday, urged the newly elected members of the incoming 10th National Assembly to reject plans by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to select their next presiding officers.
National coordinator of PAN, Anderson Osiebe, said the group has been engaging with political stakeholders on the issue, in the last two months.
The group warned that repeating the mistake of 2019, when the positions of presiding officers of the 9th National Assembly were micro-zoned, would birth another rubber stamp Assembly.
Osiebe said certain criteria should be considered by lawmakers-elect in picking the next leaders of the two chambers of the National Assembly.
“We condemn in its entirety the interference and many glaring attempts of members of the Executive at both the national and state levels to choose presiding officers for members of the Legislature in these aforementioned jurisdictions.
“We note that the legislature is a different and an independent arm of government recognised by our Constitution. We call on members to resist by every legitimate means, including legal actions, all attempts by the Executive or their proxies at the federal level and the states to inelegantly interfere in their affairs.
“They should also reject any attempt to bend or break the rules of such a legislative House or Houses in order to accord undue advantage to anyone among their members in the bid to choose a leader or leaders being favoured by the members of the Executive or their proxies.
“We affirm that after 24 years of practising our kind of Constitutional democracy, the legislature has come a long way and, therefore, retains at all levels, its independence and financial autonomy accorded to it by our statute books.
“We therefore urge lawmakers-elect never to be intimidated or muscled by any threats emanating from any Executive quarters or from their proxies. We again condemn the inherent loopholes in the so-called zoning arrangements of Presiding Officers’ positions in our National Assembly allegedly done by the ruling APC and the president-elect.”