The choice of principal officers of Nigerias 10th National Assembly expected to be inaugurated in June is threatening to tear the country ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) apart.
A cross-section of Nigerians say that the development is anti-democracy and must not be allowed to materialise.
They also fear that, if not handled carefully, the issue can degenerate further and break the APC, while derailing the incoming administrations plans to begin on a sound footing.
Recall that the APC leadership swiftly last week moved to anoint some individuals for the National Assembly principal officers positions. In the endorsement, the Party settled for former minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio as president of the Senate, and Senator Barau Jubrin, Kano-North Senatorial District (North West) as deputy Senate president.
The Party also named Tajudeen Abbass, from Kaduna State (North-West) as Speaker of the House, and Benjamin Kalu from Abia State (South-East) as Deputy Speaker.
The Party leaders said the decision was to safeguard a repeat of the 2015 arrangement whereby the process was hijacked by some other members, and those endorsed by the party could not emerge as presiding officers of the National Assembly.
Many aspirants for the principal officers positions have protested in the Partys national secretariat in recent days, asking the Partys leadership to be prepared for a repeat of what happened in 2015 episode.
Many party leaders and returning NASS members who are also aspirants in the race have publicly kicked against the ruling Partys decision to select some individuals as anointed for the positions in both chamber, and threatened not to cooperate with the arrangement.
In recent days, the crisis over its zoning arrangement has become confrontational, with frontline speakership aspirants drawing the battle line against the party. Last week, the House of Representatives members known as the G7 group stormed the partys national secretariat, Abuja, protesting over the arrangement.
Also, many senators have shown their disapproval for the preferred choices arrangement, they said it was imperative that the President-elect should remain neutral in the elections of the principal officers in the National Assembly. In recent days, some senators-elect in the APC have vowed not to support the partys anointed candidates, Akpabio and Jubril Barau for senate president and deputy respectively.
Amid the growing opposition to the consensus arrangement, there are reports that the President-elect Bola Tinubu last week met with lawmakers-elect on the platform of opposition political parties in a bid to rally support for the partys anointed candidate, especially in the House of Representatives where the ruling party do not have a clear majority membership.
Although there have been different interpretations of the current situation by analysts and political experts, there is the general conclusion that the APC would need to be extra careful and need to widen its consultation beyond where it is. They noted that many of the major stakeholders must be reached out to and reasonable negotiation must be done.
It was gatgered that the NWC is divided over the micro-zoning of the positions as the zoning template was not unanimously adopted by all members of the NWC.
However, many of the legislators are not against Tinubus choice of geopolitical zones, but against the micro-zoning of the leadership positions.
Meanwhile, pundits are predicting that the APC zoning template will not stand the test of time because of the intention.
