Gbajabiamila wins speakership ‘shadow election’

Femi Gbajabiamila has won the straw poll organised by the All Progressives Congress to pick the consensus candidate for the speakership of the house of representatives.

His opponent, Yakubu Dogara, staged a walk-out along with his supporters before the poll.

Out of about 213 APC house members-elect, 182 signed the attendance register while 31 were absent. A total of 161 voted, while four votes were voided‎.

Dogara, Abdulmumuni Jibrin, and some lawmakers had stormed out in the middle of the election in protest of the process.

Speaking with journalists after walking out of the venue of the election, Abdulmumuni said: “President Muhammadu Buhari has stated very clearly, let me read what he said: ‘It doesn’t matter where he or she comes from, there is due process for the selection of leaders of the national assembly and I will not interfere with the process. Nigeria has indeed entered a new dispensation, my‎ administration does not intend to repeat the same mistakes made by previous governments’. The president made this on the May 27‎.

“‎So we asked the the national chairman, it is either he is not in agreement with the statement of the president or he is not accepting that the president is the leader of the party.

“Secondly, we drew the attention of the national chairman that the two candidates left in the race are all children of the APC. Why don’t you allow us go to the floor of the house and determine who leads the 8th house of representatives.

“You have no reason to be worried because those aspirants are from the party. We are surprised why they are trying to force us to a process which we stated clearly ‎that there is no provision of primaries for the speakership of the house of representatives and in the constitution of the APC and there’s is no provision of primaries for speakership in the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria.

“We stated it very clearly, and that we told him (Oyegun) that this election and this primaries that he has called and for us we have interpreted it to be an ambush, an ambush against the candidature of Yakubu Dogara. We were not informed, it was not advertised and a lot of members are actually out of Abuja at the moment.

“And we requested for one single thing, we said look, if the party will be fair, postpone whatever you have to do. If you want to try out something, but he was adamant (Oyegun), to give us notice till tomorrow. The party chairman said election must go ahead; we are taking our time to explain all these so that the general public will undertsand that it is not that we are disrespecting the leadership ‎of our party; we have to get things right in this country.

“And finally our position: We told the national chairman that we will not participate in an election impromptu. It is obvious that this is pre- determined, the other aspirant mobilised his people very well, we were not informed, we were given the impression that it is just going to be a meeting of all aspirants and today we are doing something different. We stated it clearly that we will not participate in this election; it undermines the principle of the constitution of the APC, it undermines the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria.

“Our position is one and only, the next speaker of the house of representatives should be decided on the floor of the house on Tuesday 9th of June, 2015, that is what the constitution provided and that is our own position.”

With 154 APC lawmakers-elect supporting Gbajabiamila, it means he now needs only 27 more votes to hit the 181 required to become speaker of the 360-man house of representatives.

Should all other APC lawmakers decide to back Dogara or any other candidate next week, Gbajabiamila will be hoping to secure the votes of just 27 of the 147 PDP legislators in the lower chamber.

Mohammed Monguno (Borno) polled 153 votes to be returned elected as the sole candidate for deputy speaker of the house.

Speaking after the straw poll, John Oyegun, national chairman, said the party would work with the new leadership of the house at every stage.

He also urged Gbajabiamila to reach out to all APC members, even those who did not vote for him.

“From the moment you leave this hall, you should reach out to all APC members even those who did not vote for you,” he said.

“The party will work and interact with you at every stage.”

The APC national chairman further said that the party would always insist on internal democracy, adding that the emergence of Gbajabiamila through a straw election showed that the party was living up to that billing.

On his part, Gbajabiamila pledged to run an expansive regime in the house, declaring that “this is the change Nigerians have asked for”.