The House of Representatives Minority Caucus has stated that it does not support any of the candidates for Speaker.
WITHIN NIGERIA reports that this was made known at a meeting of the minority caucus in Abuja.
Hon. Fred Agbedi (PDP, Bayelsa) informed the members that they should consult with their respective governors and party leaders before taking a position.
He said:
Let me quickly say that if we must do the right thing, if we must actually represent our people, we need to be guided and to be guided, we mean that we need to interact with our leaders in our constituencies, we need to interact with our colleagues from the various States, we need to interact with our party stakeholders and all that in arriving at a decision that will be well for us.
Your conveners and other leaders have not either on your behalf or for you adopted anybody for the office of presiding officers. That will only take place when that agreement is reached by all of us. That decision will be our collective decision. But I am even saying before we get to that decision, we are going to ensure that take for example, I come from Bayelsa State, I should be able to speak with my governors, party leaders so that whatever I key into is with the understanding that my state leaders are on the same page with and that’s what we expect of all of us to do. So, that we don’t ambush Mr. A or Mr. B.
So, I wan to assure you that we will lead ourselves to arrive at a collective decision and in doing that, we have also resolved to have State coordinators who are going to meet at their different State levels, eventually also have zonal coordinators who will also work at the zonal level in collating decision that they will finally come up with after due consultation. And that’s why we have invited all of us to this meeting so that we all know who and who will coordinate our States and also who will coordinate our zones so that we give the responsibility back to you, interact, consult and then chose the direction to go.
In all the interactions we have made, our leaders have authoritatively told us that they have not given mandate to their members-elect to identify with Mr. A or Mr. B. The only mandate and directive they gave to our people is to network, interact and give them the feedback. And at the appropriate time, decisions will be made, agreements will be reached, alliances formed and then as minorities, we will be doing some sort of agreement as to what direction to go. So, as I stand here, I have not been given any mandate by my party ot governor as to what to do.