House of Reps speaker aspirants plan to field consensus candidate to challenge party imposition

AGGREIVED aspirants running for the position of House of Representatives speaker are considering to field a consensus candidate against the All Progressives Congress (APC) handpicked man Hon Tajudeen Abbas.

Over the last week, president-elect Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has been involved in a series of meeting with members of both houses of the National Assembly, where it appears that the party has agreed on the leaders of the two chambers. From all indications, Hon Abbas Tajudeen from Kaduna State has been adopted as the speaker of the House of Representatives, with Hon Benjamin Kalu from Abia State named as the party's candidate for deputy speaker.

However, the decision to adopt these candidates have not gone down well with several contestants in the race, who described the development as an imposition of candidates on the party. These lawmakers, led by the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Idris Wase, held a crucial meeting with the APC's national working committee on Wednesday after storming party headquarters.

Among those present at the meeting were Sani Jaji (Zamfara), Yusuf Gagdi (Plateau), Muktar Betara (Borno), Mariam Onuoha (Imo), Sada Soli (Kastina), Femi Bamishile (Ekiti), Abubakar Nakraba (Nasarawa), Alhassan Doguwa (Kano) and Ahmed Jaha (Borno). While accusing the leadership of the ruling party of betraying the trust of the lawmakers through its sudden imposition of candidates, Hon Wase lamented that the APC leadership did not even deem it fit to consult with them before taking its decision.

Now, Hon Betara  has revealed that the candidates have commenced moves to produce a consensus candidate among themselves. He added: “We can pick the candidate from among ourselves but will all sit down and decide on it. I assure all of you it is only one person that God would choose to be speaker.

“I assure you we are not going to have any issues. We are going to agree to support one of us as the speaker.”

However, Hon Abbas and his group of loyalists have visited vice president-elect Senator Kashim Shettima, asking him to intervene in the matter. During the meeting in Abuja, Hon Tajudeen said there is an ongoing conversation with Honourables Wase, Betara, Onuoha and others.

Hon Tajudeen and his team have been applying pressure on Senator Shettima and Abdullahi Adamu, the APC chairman to stop the rebellion in the House. They believe that Hon Betara holds the ace in the race and his withdrawal will weaken the opposition.