Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has urged the APC not to impose the leadership of the National Assembly on the members during the coming 9th Assembly.
Dogara, who spoke to journalists on the sidelines of the ongoing induction course for members-elect of the 9th Assembly, said members should be allowed to choose their leaders among themselves without any interference of political parties.
The speaker, who served as the chairman of the first session of the induction, yesterday, said the history of the National Assembly has shown that any imposition of leadership on the legislature did not endure.
“I’m not here to dictate to parties. Parties have their manifestos, they know how they conduct their businesses. But one thing I have said, if you followed the business during this induction exercise, is that it’s always better to allow leadership to emerge from the people.
“But where leadership has been forced upon the people, in the history of the National Assembly, we’re all part of this history in Nigeria, it has never endured. And the least we could afford in the National Assembly is crisis on account of the leadership selection process.
“So, whoever a party is sponsoring or supporting, they should make sure that they have the buy-in of the legislators so that they accept it and own the process; they’ll own the leadership. That way, they’ll always come out to defend it.
“But in a situation where it is forced literally, you know driven down, in most cases it doesn’t go down well. Even in the Senate, it doesn’t augur well. And it didn’t augur well too in the House of Representatives. I don’t want to be specific, but you’re journalists, you should be able to dig into the archives, you’ll be able to find the specific cases I’m referring to,” he said.
