Let The Best Men Get The Job

Nigerians have been waiting anxiously to know how the All Progressives Congress, APC, would handle the issue of picking the principal officers of the Eighth National Assembly that would be inaugurated in a  few weeks from now.  Soon after APC swept the National Assembly election on Saturday, 11 April, with a clear majority in both chambers of the National Assembly, it was clear that the party was going to produce the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives.

In view of this, contenders and pretenders have been jostling for the plum jobs. There have been intense lobbying and horse trading among the legislators. It has been assumed that zoning of the key positions would infuence the outcome of the selection process. But this has been laid to rest by a stalwart of APC, Chief Bisi Akande, who has said that zoning has no place in the party’s constitution, insisting that only the best will get the job.

We agree with Chief Akande that the best man for the job should get it. The politics of zoning has undermined our progress as a nation for too long and should be jettisoned. Zoning does not throw up the best in the land. And this has been responsible for putting square pegs in round holes in terms of federal and state appointments to sensitive positions.

In the next political dispensation  APC should not play into the hands of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, by appointing the wrong persons to the principal offices of the National Assembly. All the lawmakers gunning to occupy the offices of Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Senate Majority Leader, Deputy Senate Majority Leader, Chief Whip and Deputy Chief Whip, should be appointed on merit. They should be people of proven integrity and impeccable character to conform with the change mantra of the incoming administration of Muhammadu Buhari.

As Akande rightly pointed out, the principal officers could be sold out unwittingly to the opposition if the officers are not carefully chosen. Sentiments such as ethnic and religious considerations should not be the criteria for the appointments, after all, during the administration of President Shehu Shagari between 1979 and 1983, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, a Christian, was the Vice President and his kinsman, Edwin Umezeoke, also a Christian, was the Speaker of the House of Representatives.