Editorial
Speakership: How Gbajabiamila emerged APC’s choice
Femi Gbajabiamila, a contender for the position of Speaker of the House of Representatives, has emerged the choice of the All Progressives Congress, APC in the June 6, primaries conducted by the party in Abuja. Gbajabiamila represents Surulere, Lagos Federal Constituency in the Lower House. He was previously the Minority Leader in the 7th Assembly. Sources who should know admitted that there was high-level horse-trading and deft political maneuvers by powerful voices within the party that led to the win for the former Minority Leader.
It was gathered that the Tinubu factor was a strong variable in the calculations that led to the election of Gbajabiamila by the party. Following the rising popularity and growing influence of the former Governor of Kwara State, Bukola Saraki within the party caucaus in the Senate and his seeming endorsement by the Senators-elect of the PDP extraction, the Tinubu camp said to be opposed to Saraki’s emergence as Senate President intensified lobby and reaching out processes to get powerful blocs in the North not to support his candidature for the top Senate job.
This, according to sources, was predicated on the deft political calculation of Tinubu, who sees in Saraki a tough independent –mindedness and rigidity in being amenable to his manipulation, especially against the backdrop of Tinubu’s desire to have strong
influence in National Assembly against whatever eventualities emerge in the days ahead in the Presidency.
The calculation is that with Tinubu’s strong presence at the National Assembly, it would be difficult for the Presidency to whittle down his political gravitas in the government.
Initially, there were muted and voiced concerns in many quarters across geopolitical zones, but mostly in the North , that Asiwaju was planning a political hurricane in the National Assembly where by the key officers would come from his own camp, and this explained huge support for Saraki as a counterbalance to checkmate Tinubu’s preference of Senator George Akume, former Benue State Governor for the position of Senate President.
The North, which wanted to protect its political interest and also checkmate ”Hurricane Tinubu” quickly prodded Ahmed Lawani, an outspoken Senator from Yobe State to vie for the position of Senate President. This put Asiwaju in a tight corner. He was said to have quickly came up with a proposal to the Northern members of the Assembly: Give me Speaker, and I will support your man, Lawani. It was this trade-off that led to the victory at the primaries of Tinubu’s man, Gbajabiamila.
Mr. Gbajabiamila scored 154 votes, while his challenger, Yakubu Dogara from Bauchi, who left the venue of the election before voting commenced, scored 3 votes.
Four votes were declared invalid by the returning officer, the National Vice Chairman, North east, Babachir Lawan.
After the vote, Mr. Gbajabiamila said on his Facebook page, “Thank you for your show of love and support. I am greatly humbled. Now I need to go get my PDP brothers and sisters.”
The House of Representatives is expected to elect a new Speaker on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Mr. Dogara has rejected the election.
Tahir Monguno was also elected as candidate for Deputy Speaker. He scored 153 votes. One hundred and eighty three members attended the election, 161 voted. As it is barring last minutes change of mind, Ahmed Lawani may defeat Saraki .
Lawani is expected to run with George Akume as Deputy Senate President, while Saraki will run with Ali Ndume , a Senator from Borno State as his Deputy.
There are feelers that the National Assembly elections may tear the party apart if it is not properly managed. Already, the Like Minds Group led by Dino Melaye in the Senate has picked holes in the insistence of the party to adopt open balloting in the last Saturday’s primaries, a reason that led to the boycott of the process by the group which is loyal to the aspiration of Saraki.
The Unity Forum which insists on open balloting is loyal to Lawani/Akume for Senate President and Deputy Senate President. The quarrel is on different voting pattern for House of Representatives and the Senate. The Like Minds said APC adopted secret balloting for House of Representatives while insisting on open secret balloting for the Senate, a development it found unacceptable.
The groups will however test their will on Tuesday, June 9 when the National Assembly officers will be elected. In a statement released shortly after Mr. Gbajabiamila was announced the winner, Mr. Dogara and his supporters said the election was against the position taken by President Muhammadu Buhari on the process of electing new leaders for the national assembly. They also said it was unconstitutional for the party to organise a mock election before the main election.
They insisted that the real election for Speaker would hold on Tuesday inside the chamber of the national assembly
In a press release by the Dogara group, it said organizing mock election was illegal . The release read thus: ‘Our Stand on the Illegality perpetrated by leadership of the All Progressives Congress. We in the 8th Assembly Consolidation Group of Hon. Yakubu Dogara wish to state our position on the event of today Saturday 6th June 2015 as follows:
That we got invitation for a meeting summoned by the APC leadership
That we went to the meeting with the expectation the party wanted to give us last word ahead of Tuesday’s inauguration of the House.
However, we began to notice some moves in the hall where members supporting Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila started campaigning and soon we saw ballot papers being moved in the hall. The National Chairman of the party Chief John Oyegun informed us that they were going to conduct a mock, straw or primary election.
The 8th Assembly Consolidation Group mandated Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin to speak on our behalf. First, we read out the statement issued by our leader, President Muhammadu Buhari on the election of National Assembly leadership when he said: “It doesn’t matter who the person is, where he or she comes from.
There is due process for selection of leaders of National Assembly and I will not interfere in that process. Nigeria has indeed entered a new dispensation. My administration does not intend to repeat the same mistakes made by previous governments.”
We then told Chief Oyegun that it is either he is disagreeing with the President, undermining his stance, or does not agree that the president is the leader of the party.
Secondly, we informed the party that the remaining two aspirants in the race for the Speaker are of the APC since no PDP member is contesting for the position. We should therefore be allowed to sort it out among ourselves on Tuesday.
Thirdly, if we were coming for election we ought to have been notified well ahead.
We therefore view this as an ambush, manipulative and indicative of the fact that the party leadership came with a predetermined position which was skewed to favour Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila.
Fourthly, we also informed the APC leadership that the process they were about doing was contrary to the provisions of the party’s constitution which did not prescribe that a primary election be conducted for the Speakership, contrary to the provisions of the House Standing Orders and above all, contrary to the provisions of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The next Speaker of the House should be allowed to be elected in tandem with the constitution.
Consequently, we demanded that the process be delayed with at least 24 hours to enable us to prepare and mobilise our members. After raising these objections, the national chairman Chief Oyegun did not respond to any of the points raised.
Initially, the chairman agreed to halt the process but one hour later the National Vice Chairman North Senator Lawal Shuaibu came up and said the process must go on whether we like it or not.
At this stage we had no option than to walkout of the hall and address the press. The election of the House Speaker is not an exclusivity of the APC but include all members from all political parties.
Our position is that we are not a party to what they did and we maintain that the election of the Speaker of the House of Representatives cannot be conducted outside the chamber of the House and we are ready to participate in that process on Tuesday 9th June, 2015.
