10th NASS: Why North West Should Yield Speaker Seat – Hon Adelegbe

Hon. Timehin Adelegbe, a member of the House of Representatives who represents Ondo State’s Owo/Ose Federal Constituency in the Green Chamber, has stated that the North West zone should cede the post of Speaker of the House of Representatives to other zones.

In an interview with a few journalists yesterday in Abuja, Adelegbe said that the North West zone, which has generated four Speakers of the House of Representatives since 1999, ought to be disqualified from the election.

The federal legislators from the North West who are interested in the positions of Speaker of the House of Representatives and Senate President were in the background when the lawmaker spoke.

This month will see a gathering of the APC National Executive Committee (NEC), at which a decision on the zoning arrangement for the presiding officers of both houses of Parliament will be made.

However, the federal lawmaker noted that Salisu Buhari and Ghali Na’Abba, as well as the current governors of Katsina and Sokoto States, Aminu Masari and Aminu Tambuwal, had emerged from the North West during the presidency of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.

“Well, naturally, if we don’t put emotions into all those things, it is a very simple thing,” he said. If you take a broad view, there are three areas in the north and three in the south. Since the President was born in the South West, it stands to reason that the Speaker cannot be from the region. Since the North East chose the Vice President, the Speaker inevitably cannot be from that region, which implies that two regions have left the two bipolar levels of the South and North. Thus, North West and North Central are all that are remaining in the north. And from the beginning of democracy to the present, four leaders have come from the North West.