Atiku, Tambuwal, Dogara Backing Aliyu Betara’s Reps Speakership Bid

As the tussle for the leadership of the incoming 10th House of Representatives hots up, it has emerged that some leading op­position figures have thrown their weight behind the as­piration of the Chairman of the House Committee on Ap­propriations, Muktar Aliyu Betara. Continue Reading…...CONTINUE READING>>>

The key opposition figures that now support Betara are the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Par­ty (PDP) in the 2023 election, Atiku Abubakar; the outgoing Sokoto State governor, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, and the im­mediate past Speaker, Yakubu Dogara.

Dogara was just before the nomination of the then run­ning mate to President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a core member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), but following the party’s Mus­lim-Muslim ticket, he vehe­mently kicked against it and joined the PDP campaign.

This is even as some aspi­rants for office of speaker have intensified their lobby for the seat by taking the battle to the National Working Committee of the APC, which is expected to produce the speaker, having maintained its majority status in the House it was learnt.

Most of the aspirants, Dai­ly Independent gathered are currently seeking the support of members of the party’s NWC by reaching out to them through proxies.

Since the February 25 Presidential and National As­sembly elections results were announced, about a dozen of returning members of the House have indicated interest in occupying the number 4 cit­izen’s seat.

Some of the aspirants in­clude Deputy Speaker, Ahmed Idris Wase (APC, Plateau); Yusuf Adamu Gagdi (APC, Plateau); Muktar Aliyu Betara (APC, Borno); Princess Miriam Onuoha (APC, Imo); Abbas Ta­judeen (APC, Kaduna); Aminu Sani Jaji (APC, Zamfara), who was in the 8th House; Makki Yalleman (APC, Jigawa); Ra­heem Olawuyi (APC, Kwara); Sada Soli Jibiya (APC, Katsi­na); Alhassan Ado Doguwa (APC, Kano), and a few others.

It was reliably gathered that some of the aspirants who have ‘deep pockets’ have reached out to the NWC members with cash and other forms of gifts.

A source familiar with the happenings at the APC nation­al secretariat said a particular aspirant from the North-East zone, who does not want the party to zone the position, has sent the sum of $10,000 to each member of the APC NWC.

The source added that the aspirant would rather the APC NWC zones the position of speaker to the North as a whole and the Senate President to the South for him to be able to contest.

Zoning the speakership seat to a particular geopolitical zone in the North would automati­cally knock out the aspirant, it was learnt.

Even if the APC as a par­ty would insist on zoning the speaker’s position, part of the game plan by the aspirant and his loyalists is to also court the co­operation of the majority of the APC NWC members to delay the decision, by which time he must have caused a serious damage to the party by getting the support of the majority of the lawmak­ers-elect of the 10th House.

The aspirant, it was further learnt, is not alone in courting the support of the APC NWC members as others also joined. Although it was gathered that those who do not have ‘deep pockets’ “only manage to do what they can do.” Continue Reading…

Recall that in 2015, when the APC won the presidential elec­tion and majority seats in the National Assembly, the party’s inability to zone the positions in the federal parliament on time led to rebellion by some of its members, which led to the emergence of candidates from zones other than those the party wanted, as President of the Senate, Speaker and Deputy Speaker, with the op­position Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), winning the Dep­uty Senate President’s seat.