The All Progressive Congress (APC) Caucus in the House of Representatives has said that the choice of who becomes speaker of the 9th House of Representatives will be determined by the leadership of the party.
This is as it condemned the violence especially killings during the just concluded general elections.
The leader of the caucus, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, stated this yesterday while fielding questions during a press briefing on the elections.
Gbajabiamila who noted that issues concerning the leadership of the 9th Assembly was least amongst the concerns of the caucus at the moment, added that, at the appropriate time, party supremacy will determine that.
He said, “Well, we are yet to get to that stage, and very important too that we know the place of our party in the scheme of things. But let me say that it’s going to be purely a party thing. It’s an international best practice that when a party wins majority seats in the Parliament, it sits down to fashion out ways of distributing leadership responsibilities among members in the parliament.
“So when we get to the point of choosing our leaders, the concept of party supremacy must come to play. So it’s the party’s responsibility to tell us which direction to go”, he said.
Speaking on the general elections earlier, the House leader, flanked by other members of the caucus, described the election as a process of national rebirth wherein there was “no victor and no vanquished”.
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“The 2019 general elections have come and gone, and they were keenly contested processes that saw many upsets and surprises.
“However, it was also a process that led to the loss of precious lives of Nigerians, and we regret the loss of any life during the process. One life lost means a loss to the nation especially the loss of our colleague, Temitope Olutayo Sugar, for whose sake we adjourned sitting today”, Gbajabiamila stated.
While congratulating its members who were returned, the caucus also commended the opposition for a giving a good account of itself at the polls.
“We congratulate the APC, we also congratulate the PDP and our colleagues from other parties. For us there were no victors and no vanquished. For all those who participated in the process and lost, we say they should take heart and accept the outcome”.
It further called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to as a matter of urgency, conclude all pending cases of inconclusive elections in the country, stressing that such has become very necessary, given the daunting task ahead of the country regarding insecurity, illiteracy and poverty.
“We call on INEC to quickly conclude all issues of inconclusive elections still pending in six different states of the federation. INEC must expedite action on them so as to calm frailed nerves citizens have been placed on edge on the account of unannounced results”.
To the general House, the caucus said “there’s no time to waste as there’s still the budget to deal with, the minimum wage bill still pending before us, and we have to see them through”.
