TheCable

Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, an Igbo socio-cultural oragnisation, says zoning of the deputy speakership position of the house of representatives to the southeast is “disgusting”.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) had nominated Tajudeen Abbas and Benjamin Kalu for the positions of speaker and deputy speaker of the 10th assembly.

Abbas is from Kaduna in the northwest, while Kalu hails from Abia in the nation’s southeast.

In 2022, before the party primary elections, Ohanaeze Ndigbo and stakeholders from the southeast had demanded that the presidential tickets be zoned to the geopolitical zone.

In a statement issued on Friday, Chiedozie Ogbonnia, the group’s publicity secretary, said zoning of the number six position of the country to the southeast is “provocative”.

“The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has watched with grave concern the zoning of principal officers of the senate and the house of representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” the statement reads.

“We have also observed that the APC zoned the position of deputy speaker to the southeast of Nigeria.

“The Ohanaeze Ndigbo states that allocating the position of the deputy speaker to the southeast is highly unreflective, disgusting and provocative to the Igbo.”

The group asked southeast lawmakers in the 10th national assembly to vote “according to their discretions, irrespective of state, religion or ethnicity”.