The Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, has said the Peoples’ Democratic Party was playing cheap politics by accusing it of scuttling the ambition of the South-west region to produce the head of the country’s federal representatives.
National Publicity Secretary of the ACN, Lai Mohammed, in a press release issued in Lagos on Sunday reacted to the allegation by Dr Doyin Okupe that the ”Yoruba people in the ACN conspired against the Yorubas” to scuttle the election of a Yoruba person as House Speaker.
According to him, ”If the PDP had indeed wanted a Yoruba as Speaker, the party should either have won enough seats in the South-west or used its majority in the House to push through its anointed candidate.
“Failure to ensure the election of its candidate is a reflection of the insincerity of the PDP about the zoning of the post to Yoruba and the gross indiscipline in the party of tattered umbrella.”
Mohammed said the other option open to the PDP would have been to support any other Yoruba for the post across party lines.
“We the ACN have very capable members in the House to serve as Speaker. But the truth is that the ruling party wants a PDP member, not a Yoruba, for the post.
”Therefore we are not surprised that the PDP easily acquiesced to the defeat of its Yoruba candidate for the post of Speaker of the House. The PDP zoning formula is pivoted on convenience rather than principle, After all, the zoning was easily jettisoned to pave the way for Jonathan to contest as President,” it said.
The statement concluded by saying that even if the PDP had not succeeded in giving the post of House Speaker to the Yorubas in accordance with it so-called zoning formula, it could have rewarded them other top appointments, instead of totally relegating the whole people into irrelevance in its scheme of things.
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