The national chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC) John Odigie-Oyegun wrote a letter to the speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara.

Dogara responded to the letter, and now a group loyal to him within the party has written back to Oyegun too.

Read excerpts from the letter below.

We stand on our earlier position that whilst we accept and agree with the principle  of Federal Character, the Constitutional provisions in that regard are strictly in reference to the appointment to the Federal Executive and its agencies.

The principle of Federal Character is not intended to be given such elasticity to the extent that it would extend to the running and internal workings of the House which is not a government agency and whose members are not appointed but elected.

Assuming Federal Character was meant to be applicable to the National Assembly, then certainly one of the Houses of the National Assembly must be headed by a Southerner. Remember sir, that in the run-up to the election of the Senate President and Speaker, our party made a deliberate choice, to apply this same principle of Federal Character such that all qualified zones will be represented in the spirit of national unity, which we embrace, but we all know how that ended.

Furthermore to accept the Speaker’s arrangement would mean the two most powerful positions in the Senate and House after the presiding officers would be occupied by the North.

Whilst we maintain that our party’s mantra of ‘Change’ for the growth and development of our dear nation requires that merit should not be sacrificed on the altar of zoning, we have painstakingly ensured that in the selection of our leaders in the House, all zones are represented, except the South East, which unfortunately, are currently excluded from holding leadership positions because the House Rules disqualifies ‘inexperienced’ members from holding leadership position.

Unfortunately, all our party members from the South East are first term legislators. The South East can be adequately compensated through other means without violating our rule on appointment of principal officers.

Hon. Dogara, in paragraph 7 of his letter quotes the provision of section 147 of the constitution which specifically requires that the President in appointing Ministers, shall observe the Federal Character principle as provided in section 14. He has inadvertently made our point that Federal Character is applicable only to the executive and its agencies.

If the framers of our constitution had intended same to apply to the running of the legislature Houses, similar provisions which mandated the president specifically, would have been included in the case of the National Assembly. This is how laws are interpreted and all lawyers know this including the Speaker. This legal principle of interpretation is known as the “exclusion unis “rule of interpretation.

Hon Dogara in his letter wrote on issue of morality. It is on record and we hereby attach copies (Punch and Daily Trust) of the press conference granted by Hon. Dogara sometime in May when it became apparent that the Party intended to zone the Speakership to the South West and Senate President to the North East.  

Hon Dogara rejected the idea of zoning at that time insisting that zoning did not matter, which is why he went against our party’s recommendation, and contested for Speaker. Right now, the Senate President and the Speaker are both from the North.

We find it highly immoral, disingenuous, insincere and downright hypocritical, that someone who rejected and was anti zoning will now be the person waiving the zoning card when it serves his purpose. We cannot pick and choose or flip-flop on the application of zoning based on our whims and caprices and he who comes to equity must come with clean hands.

We are surprised that in copiously quoting our House Rules, the Speaker’s letter did not address the most important Rule of all as it relates to appointment of Principal Officers. Order 7 Rule 37 of the House Rules states:

“Only members with cognate legislative experience as members of the National Assembly shall be eligible for appointment as Principal Officers”

This rule goes to the very heart of the issue of the South East not being represented in the majority party positions. This rule is relevant because the thrust of the Speakers argument is that 1 zone cannot have 2 slots out of 6 slots open to the Party. However before we can even begin to talk of zoning, one must first qualify for the office. Unfortunately under the above rules the south east is disqualified.

There are 2 members of APC from the zone and they are both new members and so by operation of law they are automatically disqualified. The rule was put in place years ago, not in anticipation of disqualifying any zone, but to strengthen the institution. As stated, this rule is universal and exists in all parliaments world over and is not peculiar to Nigeria. Ranking is a legislative tradition.

An erroneous impression has been created that the body of Principal Officers is a body of 6 members.  This must be corrected. The Body of Principal Officers of the House of Representatives is one body with 10 members. The Majority Party contributes 6 and the Minority Party contributes 4.

The added advantage of two that the majority has is because it is able to produce the Speaker and Deputy because of numerical strength.  This body makes decisions together and leads the House together.  

We believe that the South East is already represented in the body of Principal Officers by way of its new Deputy Minority Leader. Worthy of note is that the minority party also complied with Order 7 rule 37 in electing their leaders. Otherwise they could have selected from their large pool of many gifted and brilliant new members from the South East.

In referring to history and enumerating past principal officers, the Speaker was not accurate when he claimed it was the House tradition to spread principal offices amongst the zones. It was not the House tradition or policy.

It was a PDP tradition (of which he was a member) and policy. This is not a PDP House and we should be careful not to introduce or pass off PDP policies as House policies. Nigerians voted for a break from such. Indeed the opposition in the 6th and 7th assemblies had 2 members from the North West out of the 4 members it contributed to the body of Principal Officers.

Mr. Chairman, history beckons and posterity will always judge our conduct and contributions to the development of our democracy. A Political Party is an institution and its supremacy is universal and not a Nigerian coinage.

It is on record that the Speaker defied the Party going into the elections and he is about to repeat such defiance. The party must assert its authority over all its members the Speaker inclusive as none of us came to the House as independent candidates and we subscribed expressly and impliedly to the Party’s supremacy in political activities.
Article 9.2 of the APC constitution which we all subscribed to states “Members of the party shall be obligated to affirm the party’s aims and objectives”. The party’s letter to the Speaker on party positions forms part of the aims and objectives of the party.

This Party has bent over backwards for the Speaker and enough is enough. He refused zoning before the elections (see attached May Press conference) and because of his refusal the party decided to conduct primaries and allow the members themselves to decide, he refused that too and struck a deal with the opposition.

It seems for the Speaker who won his election by 8 marginal votes, it is his way or the high way. We cannot adopt this winner takes it all approach as it will be unfair to Nigerians. Our party campaigned against the PDP’s impunity in all its ramifications and so did the Nigerian people and we cannot be seen to be condoning the very thing we condemned the PDP for. That smacks of hypocrisy.

Janeth J