Tinubu succumbs to pressure, upgrades Abbas to GCON

President Bola Tinubu has conferred the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON) on Tajudeen Abbas, speaker of the house of representatives.

In his Independence Day speech, Tinubu said Senate President Godswill Akpabio, and Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, chief justice of Nigeria (CJN), will be conferred with the GCON, while Abbas and Barau Jibrin, deputy president of the senate, will get Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CFR).

On Wednesday, the lawmakers rejected the planned conferment of the CFR title on its speaker.

The house said it is “discriminatory” for Tinubu to confer GCON on Akpabio and Kekere-Ekun, while reserving CFR for Abbas.

However, in a statement on Friday, Bayo Onanuga, special adviser to the president on information and strategy, said the house position prompted the president to remedy the “historical error and oversight”.

Onanuga clarified that the upgrade of Abbas from CFR to GCON aligns with the National Order of Precedence.

“The speaker, the Senate President, other principal officers of the National Assembly and the Chief Justice of Nigeria will be formally decorated with their new honours later,” the statement added.

Abbas will be the first speaker to be conferred with the GCON title.

In 2008, lawmakers in the lower chamber protested the conferment of CFR on Dimeji Bankole, who served as speaker between November 2007 to June 2011.

The house said the title was “too small” for Bankole’s status.