The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila last Thursday met with members of the House of Representatives jostling to replace him as the Speaker of the 10th National Assembly.
In a post on his Twitter handle to disclose the meeting, Gbajabiamila stated that he believes each of the nine aspirants at the meeting has the capacity to lead the House and build on the legacies of the 9th Assembly.
He said: “Yesterday (Thursday), I met with aspirants for the office of the Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives in the coming 10th Assembly. All 9 aspirants I have known and worked with for many years and I have no doubt will do well in continuing and building on the legacy of the 9th Assembly.”
OsunDaily News reports that those at the meeting include Deputy Speaker Ahmed Idris Wase; Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation Aliyu Mukthar Betara; Chairman of the House Committee on Navy, Yusuf Adamu Gagdi; Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Benjamin Kalu and Chairman, House Committee in Land Transport, Tajudeen Abbas.
Others include the Chairman of the House Committee on Disaster Preparedness, Abdulraheem Olawuyi; Chairman of the House Committee on Water Resources, Sada Soli Jibia, Abubakar Makki Yalleman, and Sani Jaji.
They were joined at the meeting by Deputy House Leader, Peter Akpatason.
Speaking to journalists on the details of the meeting, Gagdi said Gbajabiamila denied backing any of the aspirants, especially Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, the suspected candidate of Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State.
He said, “The Speaker did not call us to ask anybody to step down as it is being speculated. One, there are insinuations and accusations that he is supporting one candidate; that is Tajudeen Abbas. He called that meeting first to know how we are campaigning as individuals and whether we have problems among us – the aspirants – to which we said, ‘No, we don’t have any problem’.
“Then, some of the aspirants raised an issue that the Speaker’s boys were using his name for that aspirant (Abbas); that the Speaker asked them to campaign for him and it was creating apprehension and tension.
“So, some people raised that observation for the Speaker to call the attention of one of his aides parading himself that he’s under the instruction of Mr. Speaker to support one candidate. That was sorted out.”
Gagdi added, “Secondly, the Speaker emphasised to us that he is a party man; and being the Speaker, he has never done anti-party (activities). So, he assured us that any day and any time the party zoned the leadership positions, he would be supporting the zone that the party zoned (a position) to. This is the only thing that happened. So, anybody that tells you anything outside that, it is not true.”
Responding to a question whether the APC had communicated its zoning formula to the caucus, the lawmaker stated, “You can’t have any communication from the party at this time. The party chairman (Abdullahi Adamu) is out of the country on official assignment with some members of the National Working Committee. The president-elect is equally out of the country. Everybody knows that the president-elect is in France. So, how will the party sit and agree on zoning if the president-elect, who has a major stake in this thing, is not considered?”
