How Gbajabiamila Rejected Dogara’s Offer Of Dep Speaker

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Meanwhile, the PDP has congratulated the newly elected leaders of the National Assembly, the Senate president Bukola Saraki, his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu (PDP), and the House of Representatives speaker Yakubu Dogara.

Fresh development has emerged following yesterday’s election of leaders in the 8th National Assembly.

After Senator Bukola Saraki emerge as the Senate President and Senator Ike Ekweremadu as the Deputy President, major attention moved over to the House of Representatives.

After a keenly contested election in the house, Hon. Yakubu Dogara defeated Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila to emerge as the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

But just before the House elects who deputizes Hon. Dogara, it was gathered that the newly elected Speaker personally reached out to his opponent, Hon. Gbajabiamila to take the slot of Deputy Speaker.

Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila and Hon. Yakubu Dogara

According to Daily Post, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila turned down Dogara’s offer of Deputy Speaker.

The report shows that Dogara was said to have held a brief discussion with Gbajabiamila, with an appeal to accept nomination. The discussion took about thirty minutes.

Before going for the meeting, Gbajabiamilia reportedly reached out to some the APC bigwigs to brief them of the development.

However, the signal he got was clear which was; he must not accept any position below the Speaker of the House.

This didn’t stop the Dogara’s camp from luring Gbajabiamila to come on board, they pressed on to get him change his mind.

However, when it became clear the former Minority Leader would not take the offer, Gbajabiamila’s camp asked Hon Mohammed Monguno (Borno, APC), to accept the nomination.

Monguno will however be defeated by Hon. Suileman Lasun Yusuff (Osun), who had the backing of Dogara’s camp as Monguno is from same region with the new Speaker.

It was gathered that before the election, several other lawmakers made efforts to convince Monguno to step down for Yusuff since he is a Northerner but he rejected the appeal and insisted on contesting.

Yusuff, the new second-in-command at the Green Chamber, a second term lawmaker, eventually polled 203 votes as against Monguno’s 153. He was sworn in immediately by the Clerk.

Also, former Deputy Majority Leader, Hon Leo Ogor (Delta, PDP) had declined to run for the office despite pressure mounted on him by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) caucus in the Lower Chamber to do so. Ogor’s reason for declining the offer is still unclear.

Posted by Ike Onwubuya