Oodua Peoples Congress, OPC, has described the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Tambuwal, as a usurper who hijacked the office since 2011, saying he should immediately cede the post to a Yoruba legislator in the lower chamber.
It also denied any security pact with the embattled Speaker, saying that its members were not providing him protection. OPC President, Dr. Frederick Fasehun, in a press statement circulated in Lagos, denied a news report on Sunday that it had dispatched about 60 of its men to provide protection for Tambuwal after police authorities withdrew the Speaker’s security detail, following his defection from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC. Fasehun said there could be no meeting point between OPC and Tambuwal because he had usurped the position originally zoned to the South-West.
He recalled that OPC had raised a voice of protest when in June 2011 Tambuwal mounted the seat of Speaker, a position originally zoned to the South- West by the ruling PDP. Largely aided by defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, elements in the House, Tambuwal had defeated PDP-favoured Mrs. Mulikat Adeola-Akande, representing Ogbomoso North/South/ Orire federal constituency in a contest for the seat.
He said: “Back in 2011, we told Tambuwal that he was a usurper of a seat reserved for the Yoruba, and asked him to vacate the position. But he refused. No way can we now extend any form of assistance to him.
“And we still maintain our stand that Tambuwal should hand over the position of Speaker of the House of Representatives to Yoruba people, who have an authentic claim to the position.”
The OPC President, said but for the maturity and restraint displayed by the South-West, Tambuwal’s occupation of the position would have created acute political crisis in the federation, as it did not only violate the federal character principle enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution, but amounted to a slap to the Yoruba people.
National Mirror.
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