Speakership Race: Abbas, Kalu visit APC NWC, ask Adamu to talk to aggrieved aspirants

One of the aspirants for the House of Representatives Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, has asked the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdulahi Adamu, to intervene in the ongoing battle for the control of the 10th House.

Mr Abbas, who is the endorsed candidate of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, and the National Working Committee of the APC, visited Mr Abbas on Tuesday at the APC secretariat in Abuja.

Mr Abbas met with the NWC members alongside his running mate, Ben Kalu, and the Joint Task group.

The party endorsed Messrs Abbas and Kalu as speaker and deputy speaker respectively. However, the endorsement has been met with pushback from some aspirants that recently formed a coalition.

The aspirants, all members of the APC, formed a group called the Coalition of Progressive Speakership Aspirants (COPSA) to challenge Mr Abbas.

The members of COPSA include Deputy Speaker Idris Wase, Muktar Betara, Sada Soli, Aminu Jaji, Yusuf Gagdi and Miriam Onuoha.

In his speech, Mr Abbas said the party should speak with other aspirants in the race to pacify them. In exchange, he promised to “do anything possible to protect the interest of the party”.

“I want to urge you to add something to your resume, which is to deliver the leadership of the 10th National Assembly. You have done everything, including delivering the party during the last election. This is the only task left for you to achieve.

“You have done one leg. The next thing is to call on all those that will vote to come and vote for your candidates.

“We urge you to call all our co-contestants. We are more than willing to work together on a mutual basis to move the country forward,” Mr Abbas.

Stop calling him speaker— Adamu chides lawmakers

In his speech, Mr Adamu cautioned the lawmakers to stop calling Mr Abbas “speaker”, noting that they must wait until after the election on 13 June.

He said the party is committed to consultation with all parties involved to avoid division.

“I want to correct something that was said here. A lot of you referred to Hon. Abbas as the Speaker, but he is only one of the aspirants.

“By the proclamation of the President, the Clerk of the National Assembly is going to conduct the election. There’s no other way about it. There will be an election. Once he’s elected, he’ll be sworn in by the CNA.

“We had discussions with the President-elect, the people from the VP-elect, the Senate President and the Speaker, we arrived at a decision. We said clearly in our statement that there is a need for further consultations so that we go to the labour room well-prepared. We should calm nerves and massage political egos,” he said.

Mr Abbas is a third-term lawmaker from Kaduna State and currently serves as Chairman of Committee on Land Transport.