Hon. Femi Gbajabiamilia – who was the preferred candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, for the Speakership of the House of Representatives but lost to Hon. Yakubu Dogara – has emerged the majority leader of the lower chamber.
The speaker, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, who made this announcement on the floor of the green chamber on Tuesday, also announced Buba Jibrin as the Deputy House Leader, Alhassan Doguwa as the Chief Whip, and Pally Iriase Deputy Chief Whip.
For the minority principal positions, Chukwuma Onyema was announced the minority house leader; Leo Ogor, deputy minority house leader; Umar Barde; minority whip, and Binta Bello; deputy minority whip.
With this development, the South-West will now be occupying two out of the six principal positions in the House
Ever since, Dogara spurned the arrangement of the APC leaders by becoming Speaker, the struggle had moved to the selection of principal officers in the House with the APC Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, asking him to outline names of Reps members the party wants to preside over the affairs of the 8th House.
Dogara, however, refused to read the letter on the floor of the House, opting not to go with the will of the party leadership in view of his camp’s belief that the leadership of the lower chamber should be made to reflect Nigeria’s geopolitical spread.
This stance was strongly resisted by APC loyalists in the House, causing its penultimate plenary to erupt in commotion that resulted in a five-week recess.
Last Saturday, the Dogara camp led by Abdulmumin Jibrin announced that a peace deal had been reached with Gbajabiamila’s group. But Gbajabiamila’s loyalists later denied reaching any agreement with the other APC members.
President Muhammadu Buhari had waded into the crisis yesterday by summoning the lawmakers, but the meeting ended in deadlock. After Gbajabiamila’s emergence and the announcement of other principal officers, the house adjourned till Wednesday.
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