Tajudeen Abbas and Benjamin Kalu, the two APC leaders running for the House of Representatives leadership positions, travelled to Abuja on Tuesday to meet with the party’s National Working Committee. They were accompanied by about 30 other members-elect.
Three white Coaster buses hauled the lawmakers, who included Joint Task Committee members and supporters of the current Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, to the meeting’s private location at around 2.18 p.m.
Following the announcement of the zoning arrangement on May 8, Abbas and Kalu will finally be meeting with the NWC led by Senator Abdullahi Adamu at the political roundtable on Tuesday.
Senator Godwin Akpabio, the former minister of Niger Delta affairs, and Senator Jibrin Barau, the head of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, were each micro-zoned for the position of Senate president by the APC.
Abass was given the privilege of serving as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Kalu, the representative-elect from the South-East, won the position of Deputy Speaker.
After a three-and-a-half-hour meeting of the NWC, the National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, made the announcement a few weeks ago.
Other candidates in the race and their supporters were outraged by the arrangement, and many of them blamed the party leadership for not consulting them before announcing it.
The agenda for their meeting has not yet been made public as of the time this story was filed.
According to sources, however, the delegation may have come to inform the national chairman and the NWC members of the level of progress as part of ongoing discussions aimed at winning over their colleagues and other lawmakers from all boards to their cause.
Later, more specifics…
