10th Speaker: NWC, Tinubu agree to further, better consult – Adamu tells Abbas

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

The National Chairman of All Progressive Congress (APC), Abdullahi Adamu, yesterday told the anointed Speakership candidate of the party, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas that the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party, after meeting with the President elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his Vice, Kashim Shettima, it was resolved that there is need for further and better consultation on the zoning formula of the party.
“After reporting to the National Working Committee (NEC) the discussions we had with the President-elect and leaders like the Vice President-elect, the Senate President, the Speaker; my humble self, the National Chairman of the Party, my Deputy North, Deputy South and the National Secretary of the party, I reported our deliberations. It was clear in our declaration that there is need for further and better consultations”, Adamu told Abbas and his colleagues when they paid him a courtesy call yesterday.
Hon. Abbas had led members of the Joint Task Committee of the House of Representatives, to pay a courtesy visit on Adamu and members of his NWC, where he (Adamu), apparently irked by reference to Hon. Abbas as Speaker by members of his allies, said it was wrong to ascribe Speaker to Abbas before he is elected by his colleagues.
Addressing the members, Adamu said “I want to make one correction so that we will not be misrepresented. A quite number of you have referred to Hon. Abbas as the Speaker. Please, please he is one of the aspirants. He will become a Speaker on the day of proclamation.
“The laws guiding that office are very clear, he will earn that on the day of proclamation by the President and Commander in Chief of the 10th National Assembly. The Clerk to the National Assembly will conduct the election, there is no option other than the election. When he comes out of that election and they raise his hand and when he is sworn in as the Speaker, that nomenclature becomes most appropriate. Wait. Continue doing your good work.”
While wishing him luck in his contest, Adamu said “We have received all the other aspirants for the President of the Senate and the Speakership of the House of Representatives. I, on behalf of my colleagues, wish you the best of luck.”
Speaking earlier, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas commended the role APC NWC played in his emergence and his colleague as the candidate of the party for the June 13th election of the leadership of the House of Representatives.
He said “We want to thank you and we want to impress on you that you have chosen the right people. We will do everything humanly possible to protect the interest of the party, to protect the interest of the government and to protect the interest of the Nigerian populace.
“You can take it to the market Mr. Chairman that we are together. I want to use this opportunity Mr. Chairman to ask you to complete one item in your resume. You have conquered the parliament several times; you were a party man several times; you were in the executive several times; you have delivered the president-elect of our party this time around.
“What is only outstanding to complete your resume is to deliver the leadership of the National Assembly 2023. I want to urge you Mr. Chairman and members of the NWC that if tomorrow you have done one leg of your job, that is the endorsement of the people that will represent the party in the next dispensation.
“The next is to come all out, to support, to encourage, to convince every member who has a vote to come and vote for your candidate come June 13”, he said.