The national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has urged its National Assembly members-elect to play down the issue of zoning of the Assembly leadership.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, and Ali Ndume (APC Borno-South), said this while speaking with State House correspondents after the meeting of the APC leaders with lawmakers-elect at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Monday.

The meeting was chaired by the APC National Chairman, Sen. Abdullahi Adamu.

The duo said the party’s leaders urged the lawmakers-elect to focus on the forthcoming governorship election.

Gbajabiamila said the meeting was to bring the National Assembly members-elect together to celebrate the party’s victory.

He said the meeting was to assure members that in spite of all the odds against the party, it was able to overcome.

READ ALSO: Tinubu: I’ve no preferred candidates for 10th NASS leadership

“On the issue of zoning, yes, we did talk about it; it is neither here nor there yet; we have another election coming up this weekend and we want to make sure that everybody goes back home, roll up your sleeves.

“It is not hurray yet; we are not there yet; we need to complete the victory and our joy before we talk about the National Assembly; and that’s basically what it was about,” the Speaker said.

Gbajabiamila stated that the absence of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, at the meeting did not affect the outcome.

According to him, question of zoning should be put on hold until the election is over.

Speaking on why he was not available to receive his Certificate of Return from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on March 7, Gbajabiamila said: “All I heard was that I didn’t come here last week to pick up my certificate and because of that somebody conjectured that must be because I didn’t care about it or something about Chief of Staff.

“It will interest you that I was in Lagos; I couldn’t leave Lagos because I was campaigning for my party.

“It will also further interest you that I was not here four years ago to pick up my certificate because I couldn’t make it; I didn’t think it was anything significant.

“I will pick my certificate today or tomorrow,’’ the Speaker said.

On his part, Ndume said the meeting was to evaluate the party’s performance and go back home to complete the party’s victory.

The lawmaker stated that Nigerians had spoken and elected APC, adding that there would be usual ups and downs in every electoral process.

“And the party, as expected also, appealed to the members of the National Assembly-elect to play down on the leadership issues and concentrate so that we take the election battle to the end; and that is to ensure that we win our states; and that is exactly what we are doing.

“The party has already strengthened us and we agreed that interactions like this should be frequent so that we will be going in the same direction instead of having issues by the experience of 2015 and 2019 to some extent.

“The issue of zoning did not come up; the president-elect is a parliamentarian; he has more experience than most of us and coincidentally, the Nigerian government is going to be National Assembly government.

“The President-elect was a senator; the Vice President-elect was a senator; the party chairman was a senator; the secretary of the party was a senator; I believe that this time around we are going to have a rancor-free relationship,” Ndume said.

The Star