Speaker: Minority group denies endorsing Abbas

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Speaker: Minority group denies endorsing Abbas

A coalition of members-elect of the 10th House of Representatives in minority parties, 10th Assembly – Greater Majority, has denied endorsing Tajudeen Abbas for the position of Speaker.

The Secretary of the group, Ali Isa, made this known in a notice to members issued on Saturday and titled ‘Important Notice to All Members of the Minority Caucuses of the 10th National Assembly, House of Representatives.’

Some leaders of the coalition met with the outgoing Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, who is championing Abbas’ campaign, in Abuja on Thursday.

According to a statement issued by spokesmen of the group, Victor Ogene and Dachung Bagos, and titled ‘Greater Majority Group Meets With Speaker Gbajabiamila,’ the meeting was in furtherance of the Speaker’s “quest to ensure that the emergent 10th Assembly of the House of Representatives does not take off on a turbulent note.”

At the meeting was the leader of the group, Nicholas Mutu, accompanied by Fred Agbedi, Oluwole Oke, Ali Isa, Dennis Agbo, Mansur Soro and Kabiru Ahmadu as well as Bagos and Ogene.

The statement had partly read, “The parley with Speaker Gbajabiamila is the climax of a series of interface, which the Greater Majority has had with all those aspiring to lead the House.”

However, Isa stated in the statement that the 10th Assembly–Greater Majority had yet to adopt the APC candidates as Speaker and Deputy Speaker.

The statement read, “Our attention has been drawn to a fictitious report circulating in both conventional and unconventional media circles (excluding PUNCH) that the minority caucuses have endorsed a candidate for the office of Speaker House of Representatives.

“We, hereby, use this opportunity to categorically state that at no time did the minority caucuses endorse anyone, and we wish to add that as part of our ongoing consultations with all relevant stakeholders, which also includes receiving presentations from all the aspirants for the speakership, the group merely met with Femi Gbajabiamila, the outgoing Speaker of the House of Reps, and Tajudeen Abbas, who also engaged our committee and made his presentation to solicit the support of members of our caucuses to work with him just like the other aspirants did.

“At no time did we make any announcement endorsing anyone for any office, and neither did we promise such endorsement to any aspirant or their proxies.”