BY BEN AGANDE

ABUJA – Disagreement among members of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, on who should pick the position allocated to its members in the House of Representatives has stalled the announcement of who would be the Deputy Minority Whip, Vanguard investigation has shown.

Four meetings called by the leadership of the party to resolve the matter all ended in deadlock, while the members angling to occupy the position have been advised to await the return of the party’s presidential candidate in the last election, General Mohammadu Buhari, from abroad.

While Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, with 69 members in the House of Representatives is to produce the Minority Leader of the house, the  CPC caucus, which has 39 members, was initially allocated the position of the Minority Whip but the in-fighting amongst members has forced the ACN  to take away the Minority Whip from the CPC for failing to nominate a member for the position.

This leaves the CPC lawmakers with only the Deputy Minority Whip, just as the All Nigeria People’s Party, ANPP, with 27 members is to produce the Deputy Minority leader.

Those angling for the position are Umar Buba Jibril from Kogi and Garba Mohammed Datti from Kaduna states respectively.

Although the national leadership of the party has not formally taken a position on who it would support, it was learnt that it was disposed to choosing a candidate from outside the core area of support of the CPC as it was done by the ACN in choosing its minority leader in the senate.

A member of the caucus of the party informed Vanguard that by ranking and seniority, Buba was the most ranking member of the party as he was in the parliament before all other members and had chaired the committee on capital market.

“We told Datti that since the Speaker is from the North-West and the Vice President is also from there, he should allow Buba to be, so that our party will expand but he refused,” a member who does not want his name in print said.

According to him, “some members are of the opinion that we go for election but the party said we should wait for General Buhari to return from abroad for his final decision on the matter.”

It is expected that the full compliment of the principal officers of the party is expected to be formed by Tuesday next week when the PDP is expected to announce the names of its principal officers.