No Igbo Among NASS Presiding Officers For First Time Since 1999

Ohaneze Ndigbo has said that it was not surprised by the outcome of the National Assembly leadership election saying that it did not expect that the Igbo would get anything of primacy under President Muhammadu Buhari.

The assertion came on the background of the fact that for the first time since the advent of the Fourth Republic in 1999 that there is no Igbo among the four presiding officers of the National Assembly.

Under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP dispensation the office of Senate President was zoned to the region between 1999 and 2007 and from 2007 to 2019 the Igbo also held the position of Deputy President of the Senate.

Between 2011 and 2015 Emeka Ihedioha was Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives and for about three days after Speaker Aminu Tambuwal was inaugurated as governor of Sokoto State, Ihedioha was acting Speaker.

Reacting to the non-inclusion of the Igbo in any of the four positions in the top NASS leadership, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide in a statement described it as a gang-up against the ethnic group by political operators of the system paying heed to the body language of President Buhari.

“We are not surprised a bit. He that is down needed fear no fall. Recall that I had told you that we are not expecting any favour from this administration,” National Publicity Secretary, of Ohanaeze Worldwide, Uche Achi-Okpaga said in the statement.

“The government of President Buhari does not place any premium on the South-East and he did not mince or mumble words about that right from the onset of his first tenure.

“So, all his political foot soldiers and adherents in the National Assembly and elsewhere watch and identify with his body language, embellished with primordial ethnocentric and religious tidings.

“Government has succeeded in igniting an orchestrated gang up against the South-East.

“We have continued to extend our hands of fellowship but on each occasion, it is trampled with the feet of hatred buoyed by the air of ethnic chauvinism.”

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