The 2023 Presidential and National Assembly elections have come and gone, and the results have shown that an overwhelming majority of Nigerians have kept faith with the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) by handing the party continuity in the Presidency and a comfortable majority in both Chambers of the National Assembly.
For any honest observer, as well as any good student of Nigeria’s developmental history, the party’s triumph at the polls is well-earned because the party’s achievements in office, especially in the provision of infrastructure and growth of local productivity, are unprecedented. And these achievements are the result of the progressive collaboration and support given the Executive branch by the leadership and members of the National Assembly who are majorly of the APC.
With the party set to commence another journey of leading the country into another phase of development, and considering also that certain key national leadership offices will be zoned to respective geopolitical zones, it becomes imperative to call on the national leadership of the APC to, as a matter of principle and honour, zone the position of the Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the 10th Assembly to the North central geopolitical zone, and if it does that, it should also kindly throw its weight behind Rt. Hon. Ahmed Idris Wase, the current Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, to become the next Speaker.
Zoning the Office of Speaker to the Northcentral region and supporting Hon. Ahmed Idris Wase to occupy the office should be considered an exercise of recognition and reward for loyalty and sacrifice. Since the 2015 general elections to date, a significant section of the North central region has maintained an unalloyed support for the APC, and it will be just and noble to appreciate this support and loyalty by ceding this important national office to them so that the party can expand and maintain its hold in the region.
As a member of the House of Representatives from Plateau State, Rt. Hon. Ahmed Idris Wase has consistently shown that he is a perfect example of what loyalty and respect for the APC ought to be. Always toeing the party’s line on all matters, and having demonstrated his panache for excellent congressional leadership by the way he adroitly deputized the Speakership of the current House of Representatives under the leadership of Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, it is therefore easy to fathom that he can resolutely lead the next House to help the party achieve more wins for the Nigerian people.
His loyalty and subscription to party supremacy came to the fore in 2019 during the contest for the Speakership of the House when, in spite of having secured overwhelming support from majority of members to elect him as Speaker, he toed the party’s line by stepping down for Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila after the party decided that the position has been ceded to the Southwest. He marshalled the caucus to honour the party’s decision in the interest of peace, unity and progress of the party, and since then, he has remained committed to whatever will promote the party’s progress and stability. This is an act of nobility and sacrifice worth remembering and equally worth rewarding by the party.
As a social commentator and a fervent consumer of national and international news, I have studiously observed that Rt. Hon. Ahmed Idris Wase lives a noble public life. Not even once has he ever been mentioned in any public or private scandal, and various accounts from my interactions with some of his colleagues in the National Assembly, including even congressional staff, suggest that he is an easy-going person, a team player and an efficient go-getter. And of great significance to the party should be the fact that he started his political career within the ambience of the APC family, having won his first election to become a member of the House of Representatives in 2007 on the platform of the ACN – one of the main parties that merged to form the APC in 2013.
With a knack for cultivating goodwill and respect from his colleagues across party lines because of his simplicity and boundless generosity, it is evident that Hon. Wase can gracefully lead the House effectively with the kind of team spirit expected of legislative bodies, and the fact that he is a principled party man means he can deploy such sterling qualities into steering the Chamber to adopting and implementing the progressive ideals and objectives of the party. In other words, the streak of wins and stability the party currently enjoys because of the cooperative disposition of the current leadership of the House can only be maximized under him.
As a long-serving member of the House with several Bills to his credit, Hon. Wase is not a political neophyte. He knows the game very well, and his vast experience in continental legislation, which he began to gain since his appointment in 2018 as the Regional Representative for West Africa to serve on the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) plus his subsequent election as the first Deputy Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament in 2019, makes it all the more compelling to make the case that he has the requisite knowledge and pedigree to lead the Green Chamber in the 10th National Assembly.
And as a mark of his progressive credentials, Rt. Hon. Ahmed Idris Wase has sponsored several Bills targeted at improving Healthcare services for Nigerians in many parts of the country. For example, through his Bills, Orthopaedic hospitals have been established in each of the six geopolitical zones of the country through an amendment of the Act to allow for the establishment of Orthopaedic hospitals in zones that previously had none, thus paving the way for Edo (South/South), Jos (Northcentral), and Jalingo (Northeast) to have one each. And by deploying his well-known dexterity in consensus building, he was able to galvanize the House into supporting and passing the Companies and Allied Matters (Repeal and Re-enactment) Act, 2020 and the Petroleum Industry Act, 2020, which are two critical Acts that have come to mark the economic threshold of the Buhari Administration.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) should not miss the opportunity of harnessing this bundle of talents and faithful servant of progressive politics to implement its legislative agenda. Nigeria needs him in such capacity as Speaker of the House of Representatives, beginning from June 2023.
Cham Faliya Sharon is an Abuja-based social commentator
