Former Senate leader faults APC zoning arrangement

…says it is not strategic to win elections
Former Senate leader and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, has faulted current zoning arrangement of the APC, saying it is not strategic to win elections as it is badly skewed.

Speaking in Calabar, yesterday, Ndoma-Egba said he had seen different lists, one saying that the National Secretary was zoned to South-South /South East and another list showing that it was zoned to the South West.

According to him, the list that gives it to the South West is the latest and appears to be the one that everybody assumes is the authentic list.

He said: “You should be more strategic by considering how you can use offices that are very strategic to strengthen zones that are weak, because at the end of the day, whoever the candidate is, will require winning in those other weak zones or getting at least one quarter of the votes cast in each of those states.

“So if you don’t have those strategic objectives, you may just get lost by thinking that you simply moved the office from one zone to another because it was in that zone. I have gone through the purported authentic zoning list, I don’t see anything strategic. I have gone through the two lists; there is nothing strategic about them. It doesn’t portray any election winning strategy. It’s rather the simple approach of moving offices from one zone to the other.”

“The position of National Secretary is very strategic. You say you are taking it to the South West; the South West is already very strong to deliver for APC, it is perhaps the strongest zone for APC, in addition to the north. The North and the Southwest are the strongest parts with support for the APC. So looking at the Southwest where the national secretary is being purportedly zoned to, you already have a vice president from the zone, you have the Speaker of the House of Reps; you have five governors, and then you have the Jagaban himself, who is more than a zone, so the south west is already satiated with strength that can deliver for the APC.”

He said the strategic position of National Secretary would add nothing to Southwest, likening it to pouring a cup of water into a river.

He said it would have made more strategic sense to zone the office to Southeast or Southeast

“Now you have other zones that are wobbling and you need to secure either a majority win or a percentage win. For instance, the South East has two governors, in Ebonyi and Imo states. Ebonyi governor is a second term governor that is outgoing. Imo State is a first term governor and has an incumbency advantage as we go into the 2023 election. So in the South East you can say the party has a toehold, not yet a foot hold, just a toe-hold.

“Then you come to the South-South, the only state with any toe-hold in the South-South for the APC is Cross River State. But we recently had the Akpabuyo State constituency re-election and the Ogoja-Yala Federal constituency re-election, the figures put together showed a very narrow margin of the winning APC. So it means if we must retain Cross River State, you need to reinforce and strengthen the state with a strategic position. Ordinarily if you ask me of the strategic objectives with the position of a Secretary, I would advise it be given to the South East or the South South.”