Northern groups flay APC’s adoption of Akpabio, Abbas

  The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has rejected the adoption of a former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, and a member of the House of Representatives, Hon Tajudeen Abbas, as the next senate president and Speaker of the House of Representatives, respectively. Addressing journalists during a press conference in Abuja yesterday, […]

 

The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has rejected the adoption of a former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, and a member of the House of Representatives, Hon Tajudeen Abbas, as the next senate president and Speaker of the House of Representatives, respectively.

Addressing journalists during a press conference in Abuja yesterday, spokesperson of CNG, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, cautioned the president-elect against the antics of vested personal interests like those represented by Govs Nasir el-Rufai and Abdullahi Umar Ganduje.

He said, “We emphatically call on the leadership of the APC to reclaim its statesmanship by immediately reversing the decision on Akpabio and Abbas and set the stage for the emergence of a credible National Assembly leadership through democratic elections by its members as enshrined in our constitution.”

The group warned that if this and any similar arrangements were allowed to pass through, the North as a whole would be deliberately shortchanged by stripping it of the three main democratic influences which would be absolutely unacceptable as it was unjustifiable.

The CNG further said, “We encourage all other aspirants for any position in the National Assembly to disregard this purported and undemocratic arrangement and insist on the emergence of their leadership through acceptable and constitutionally recognised democratic elections.”