Abia female lawmaker Nkeiruka Onyejeocha eyes speakership as APC looks to zone position to the southeast

NIGERIA could be on course to get another female speaker of the Federal House of Representatives after Hon Nkeiruka Onyejeocha representing the Isiukwuato/Umunneochi Federal Constituency in Abia State threw her hat into the ring.

Hon Onyejeocha, 49, a fourth time member of the house and an ex-commissioner for manpower development in Abia State, is currently the Chairman of the House Committee on Aviation. She was recently re-elected as an All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmaker and is on pole position to become speaker if the position is zoned to the southeast geo-political zone.

Under Nigeria's informal zoning arrangement, all the six geo-political zones get one of the top offices and with the president and vice president coming from the northwest and southwest respectively, the four other zones are vying for the National Assembly leadership. With the senate presidency looking like it will go to the northeast and the deputy senate presidency to the south-south, the southeast is in pole position to clinch the speakership position.

Already, the APC leadership has met with several of its newly-elected lawmaker and if it is agreed that the senate presidency and deputy go to the northeast and south-south, the speakership will almost certainly have to go to the southeast. This will then mean that the deputy speakership goes to the north central geo-political zone.

Hon Onyejeocha, who announced her bid for the office yesterday, assured that she was confident of winning if the speakership was eventually zoned to the southeast by the APC. She added that she was in the race to help advance the party’s developmental policies using the Next Level slogan of President Muhammadu Buhari.

If she wins, Hon Onyejeocha will become Nigeria's second ever female speaker after Hon Patricia Etteh was elected to the position in 2007. She however, had to resign amid a spending irregularity scandal in which she was accused of refurbishing her official apartment without authorisation or National Assembly approval.

A graduate of the University of Nigeria, Hon Onyejeocha is also the chairperson of the group Women in Parliament. She was first elected to the National assembly in 2007 as a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but defected to the APC last year.

In the recent House of Representatives election, Hon Onyejeocha polled 14,712 to defeat her closest rival Chief Ude Achara of the PDP who scored 10,064 votes. Apparently, she left the PDP after falling out of favour with the administration of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu following her support for Uche Ogah in his failed bid to unseat the governor after obtaining a favourable court judgment in 2016.