APC gave North-West speaker, deputy senate president to compensate zone – Gbajabiamila

The outgoing Speaker of the House of Representatives, on Wednesday night, opened up on how the All Progressives Congress arrived at the decision to pick Tajudeen Abbas for Speaker and Benjamin Kalu for Deputy Speaker of the coming 10th National Assembly.

Gbajabiamila spoke in Abuja on Wednesday night at a meeting of the Joint Task – 10th Assembly, a coalition of members-elect of the All Progressives Congress and opposition parties in the coming 10th National Assembly.

The coalition had adopted the anointed candidates of the APC for Speaker and Deputy Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas and Benjamin Kalu, respectively, for the 10th House.

Gbajabiamila recalled how he told Abbas he would abide by only the decision of the APC, saying, “But as God would have it…and I will say this because a lot of people think and give me more credit and more power than it is due me. A lot of people think I zoned speakership…I handpicked and zoned. I wish I had those powers.

“I said to the people who zoned, ‘Why North-West?’ They said to me, ‘Go and read your political history;’ that from the day Nigeria was born, the North-West being the largest of voting blocs with seven states has never ever been outside the top four of the hierarchy in Nigeria. I said I didn’t know that.”

The Speaker also noted that the emergence of the APC on the political scene was basically between the South-West and the North-West. “Why would it be in my time or our time that the North-West will be left out of the calculation? That is why they zoned it to the North-West, amongst many other reasons, apart from the number of votes that they brought – 30 per cent of our figures.”

He added, “The North-West wanted the Vice-President. The President-elect decided to go to the North-East. So, the least he could do was to compensate them with speakership in terms of what they bring to the table. It is as simple as that. I did not zone it. I wish I could.”

Gbajabiamila also recalled how some members of the House persuaded him to seek a second term as Speaker, despite the fact that he is from Lagos State in the South-West as the President-elect, Bola Tinubu.

“My members came to me – many of them and some are seated here today – including every single person that is aspiring today came up to me, that they didn’t care whether the President is from the South-West or Lagos, that they wanted me to run again as a second-term Speaker.

“Even as of four weeks ago, two of the front-runners, the aspirants, said to me, that ‘if you decide to run for Speaker again, we will drop our ambition.’ It was tempting at the time but sometimes you must be selfless enough to put  country first.

“I cannot have a President-elect from Lagos, even though my members could have decided that that is what they wanted; but the optics will not be good. We just came out of a divisive election….very divisive – the most divisive in history. How then can one zone take two spots out of four? So, I refused to do it. I refused to take that bait or bite that bullet, otherwise, today, maybe, hopefully, standing before you would have been the incoming Speaker of the 10th Assembly.”

The Speaker decried that “some people have gone on campaigns trying to run me down,” saying he has “a good laugh” over it.

He also said, “Some people have said and I watched it on TV, ‘Why would he pick somebody outside of us in this closed circle? I am the next in line for succession. Why not me? This is the Chairman (of the Committee on) Appropriations; I know that member, why not him?’

“But they forget that on the two occasions that I ran for Speaker; in 2015, (Aminu) Tambuwal, the Speaker then, had a preference – (Yakubu) Dogara. Dogara was a floor member; I was the most senior APC member in that House (as Minority Leader). The roof did not come down. I did not blame Tambuwal that ‘I am the most senior, why not me?’

“In 2019, Dogara himself had a preference for (Mohammed) Bago. I was the House (Majority) Leader; I did not say ‘Why Bago? Why not me? I am the House Leader.’ It does not work like that. What I have done is to spread joy. They did North-West. I advised them and they did South-East. Spread the joy! Cut across! And in the South-East, I found Ben Kalu.”

Gbajabiamila stated he regretted leading a forum that championed the emergence of Aminu Tambuwal as Speaker of the House in the 7th National Assembly.

Tambuwal is now an outgoing two-term Governor of Sokoto State.

“I regret it,” Gbajabiamila stated while recalling the previous attempts by speakership aspirants to oppose chosen candidates of their respective parties.

Gbajabiamila noted that he wanted a Speaker who can “stand toe-to-toe with any Speaker in the African continent or in the World.” He added that Abbas had been making an impact quietly, having sponsored 78 bills, 21 of which had been signed into law.

He said, “So, I found in Tajudeen somebody I felt we could be proud of as members of the House of Representatives. That is not to say that others don’t have capacity but there is capacity and there is capacity. I am not going to stand here and run anybody down. Everybody is my friend. The price of leadership is that when moments like this happen, your friends become your enemy.

(Punch)