By Adadainfo
The Igbo United Professionals have declared support for the candidature of Mr Godswill Akpabio for the Senate president of the 10th National Assembly. Our correspondent reports that the Assembly will be inaugurated tomorrow, 13th of June, 2023.
The group also declared their support for the zoning arrangements adopted by the All Progressives Congress for the elections of Akpabio as Senate president, and Mr Tajudeen Abbas as speaker of the House of Representatives.
The association stated this in a statement signed by its president, Mr Emmanuel Ikechukwu, and the secretary, Cosmas Igata, which was made available to our reporter on Monday. The body further advised contestants for the positions from the South East to align with the APC arrangements to avoid what it described as the region’s ‘political calamity’ under ex-president Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
The statement read, “We are of the view that we cannot continue to oppose the government at the centre and expect them to factor us in their sharing formula.
“Considering what happened to us in the immediate past administration, the South East was practically sidelined in the sharing of democratic dividends just because we did not vote for APC or substantially support the leadership at the centre.
“It is true that the South-East geopolitical zone majorly supported the Labour Party and her candidates in the 2023 elections, but the lawmakers of the Labour Party across the country cannot constitute the required majority to produce the leadership of the 10th National Assembly.
“Since it will not be easy to change the already zoning formula of the APC for the leadership of the 10th Assembly, it will be in the best interest of the South East to align with the APC zoning formula than forming alliance with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who practically rejected the South-East geopolitical zone in zoning of their presidential ticket.”
The group called on Ndigbo ‘to come to terms with the realities on ground at this moment and enlarge their hearts with possible endurance by supporting the APC zoning formula for the 10th Assembly leadership while we negotiate for other positions in the country’.
