*Forget Reps speaker, Bode George tells Igbo

By Clifford Ndujihe, Deputy Political Editor & Wahab Abdullah

Political leaders of the South-East are meeting within 14 days to hammer out a common position on what offices the zone should demand in the power sharing arrangement  in the coming dispensation. There are diverse opinions in the area regarding the positions of Deputy Senate Senate President, House of Representatives Speaker and National Chairman of the PDP.

This is coming as former Deputy National Chairman of the PDP, Chief Olabode George, asked the South-East to perish the thought of producing the Speaker in the next dispensation because it runs counter to the norms of the party.

Going by the prevailing PDP power sharing formula, the North is allotted the Presidency and Senate Presidency; the South has National Chairmanship, Speakership and Deputy Senate Presidency.

Broken down further, the North-West produced the President (late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua) and the North-Central produced Senate President (David Mark).

In the South, the South-West produced the Speaker (Dimeji Bankole) while the South-East produced National Chairman (Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo) and Deputy Senate President (Ike Ekweremadu) and South-South, vice president.

However, recent events and the outcome of the 2011 elections have thrown the formula overboard, necessitating the need to enthrone a new arrangement.

The death of Yar’Adua, the swearing in of Vice President Goodluck Jonathan (from South-South) as President, and subsequent election of Jonathan for a four-year term mean that the North, not only North-West, has lost the presidency position.

Relatedly, the South-East lost the chairmanship slot to the North following the ‘forced’ resignation of  Nwodo enroute the polls and his deputy, Dr. Bello Haliru Mohammed, who hails from Kebbi State, North-West, took over the mantle of PDP leadership. However, the South-East is still retaining the position of deputy Senate President. As it is currently, the South-South has the presidency; North-West holds National Chairman and

Vice Presidency (Namadi Sambo); North-Central, Senate President and South-West (Speaker of the House of Representatives).

The outcome of the 2011 polls in which the PDP fared badly in the South-West means that the zone may find it difficult to hold onto the Speaker post due to dearth of experienced hands from which a new Speaker would be picked.

Conversely, the ruling party swept the polls in the South-East, South-South; did well in North-Central and recorded some mileage in North-West and North-East. Some South-East leaders are pushing for the zone to produce the Speaker instead of deputy Senate President.

And it is on these grounds that there is a groundswell of clamour for rejiging of the power sharing template.

Speaking on the issue, Third Republic Governor of Anambra State, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, said South-East leaders would meet very soon on the matter.

Asked his view, he said: “We are planning to have a meeting on that very soon before it is too late. I won’t want to think of my own, I want to think as a group.”

In like manner, Senate Spokesman, Senator Ayogu Eze, said: “The South-East will meet and take a decision. The South-East has not met yet, what you read in the papers is the opinion of individuals. Hopefully, we will meet not later than two weeks time.”

Former National Vice Chairman of the PDP, Chief Nze Ozichukwu, who urged the party hierarchy to meet on the issue, said such decisions were contingent on what prevailed in the past, balancing and rotation of offices. “That is why we don’t talk about zoning only, we also talk about rotation so that offices move round to ensure equity, justice and fairness to all parts of the country.”

For Bode George, those angling for the South-East to produce the Speaker are kidding because “they don’t know the history of the PDP.”

If the history of the party was anything to go by given the outcome of the elections, George said the Speaker would come from the North, probably North-Central while Senate Presidency may go back to the South-East and the South-West may get Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF).

For the party  to win the 2015 polls, the former Deputy National Chairman urged followers not to kick-start controversies that would hurt PDP’s chances in future.