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Gbajabiamila Meets Osinbajo, Promises to Appoint PDP Lawmakers Head of Committees
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and the newly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, on Monday held a closed door meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Mr Gbajabiamila, who fielded questions from State House correspondents afterwards, promised to carry opposition lawmakers along in committee membership and leadership.
The Speaker’s position contradicts that of the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, who in April vowed that members of the opposition will not head special and standing committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Speaking at a dinner hosted by President Muhammadu Buhari for elected APC lawmakers, Mr Oshiomhole said the decision was because the APC had learnt from the ”mistake” of 2015 when members not loyal to the party were allowed to assume leadership positions in the National Assembly.
The APC chairman said the House of Representatives has 96 committees and that all re-elected members will chair strategic committees, adding “even new members will chair committees this time around.”
Mr Oshiomhole said the decision was sequel to the fact that most of those who decamped from the APC were rejected by Nigerians during the election and “even those who led it were uprooted by the Oto’ge movement in Kwara State.”
“We cannot as a party which has a comfortable majority, entrust critical committees in the hands of the PDP or opposition.
“If Nigerians wanted them, they could have voted them. In the days of PDP, every committee were chaired by PDP members,” he said.
Mr Gbajabiamila said the meeting with the vice president was all about moving the country forward.
He said the meeting centered on Nigeria and charting a roadmap on how to tackle the problems confronting the nation.
“Those were the issues we discussed; it was not a personal visit; but you can call it a hybrid between personal and official; but mostly official, addressing the issues of the problem.
“We discussed on how the executive and the legislature can collaborate to make life better for Nigeria and Nigerians.
“Committees will be unfolded in the next few weeks and you will see how we intend to carry the opposition along; I am not letting anything out of the bag but you can be sure that they will be carried along.
“You heard my inaugural speech; we are going to be doing things differently; we are going to build on whatever the achievements are of the 8th Assembly.
“It is going to be a reformed house; the reforms are going to be dished out piecemeal so as not to shut the system.
“But there will be reforms that will be for the benefit of the country. We see how it goes,’’ he said.
The speaker said members of the 9th Assembly expected the cooperation of all arms of government, including the executive, journalists and their constituents.
Mr Gbajabiamila, who was a frontline candidate of the All Progressives Congress defeated his rival, Umar Bago, to emerge the speaker of the 9th assembly
(NAN)
Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, the political adviser to President Bola Tinubu, has resigned his appointment.
Reports say the former spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) tendered his resignation about two weeks ago.
Further reports quoting presidency sources did not, however, provide details of the reasons for his decision, but only stated that it was on personal grounds.
Baba-Ahmed was appointed in September 2023 as Special Adviser on Political Matters in the Office of Vice President Kashim Shettima.
Over the past 17 months, he had represented the presidency at several public fora, including a recent national conference themed: “Strengthening Nigeria’s Democracy: Pathway to Good Governance and Political Integrity”, which held from January 28 and 29, 2025 in Abuja.
The Supreme Court has set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Abuja recognising Julius Abure as the National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP).
In a unanimous judgment, a five-member panel of the apex court held that the Court of Appeal lacked the jurisdiction to have pronounced Abure National Chairman of the Labour Party, after finding out earlier that the substance of the case was about the party’s leadership.
The apex court held that the issue of leadership was an internal affair of a party, over which courts lacks jurisdiction.
The court further allowed the appeal filed by Senator Nenadi Usman and one other, and held that it is meritorious.
It also proceeded to dismiss the cross-appeal filed by the Abure group of the Labour Party for being unmeritorious.
In January, the Court of Appeal in Abuja reiterated that Abure remained the chairman of the LP.
A three-member panel of the appellate court, in a judgment delivered by Justice Hamma Barka, held that its judgment of November 13, 2024, which recognises Abure as national chairman, subsists and has not been set aside by any court.
Justice Barka made the declaration while delivering judgment in two separate appeals filed by Senator Esther Nenadi Usman and the caretaker committee and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The appellate court in the two separate appeals held that it did not delve into the issue of the leadership of the Labour Party because such issues are not justiciable.
It said that anything done outside jurisdiction amounts to a nullity. Hence, the judgment of the Federal High Court delivered on October 8, 2024, by Justice Emeka Nwite is of no effect because it was delivered without jurisdiction.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has denied being partisan in handling the failed recall of the lawmaker representing Kogi Central, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.
Rotimi Oyekanmi, the Chief Press Secretary to Chairman of INEC Mahmood Yakubu, who was on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, explained how the Commission handled the process.
“In the case of the Kogi Central District, we received a petition and a cover letter and of course what Nigerians were saying was that we were taking sides,” Oyekanmi said on the programme.
“But what happened was that in the covering letter, the representatives of the petitioners did not include their address as required in our regulations and guidelines and what we just did was to ask them to supply their address, it has nothing to do with the petition.
“And of course, there is nowhere in the law where INEC is asked to reject a petition just because the cover letter did not contain the address. So, there was no hanky-panky in what we did.”
Earlier on Thursday, INEC rejected the petition to recall Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan, saying that it has not met the requirements.
The electoral commission said the petition to recall Senator Natasha did not meet constitutional requirements.
Senator Natasha was suspended for breaching Senate rules, prompting some of her constituents to initiate her recall. They claimed the move was to ensure their constituency did not lack representation following the suspension of the 45-year-old senator.
Asked whether there could be a repeat of the recall process, the INEC spokesperson said the law did not specify if the process could be repeated and how many times.
“The law just talks about the threshold, the threshold meaning that if you want to recall, you must have, in addition to your petition, 50 per cent plus one signatures. The law did not specify how many times you can undertake that,” he said.
The lawmaker has made headlines in recent months after she accused Senate President Godswill Akpabio of sexual harassment, a claim the Akwa Ibom lawmaker has equally denied.
She was, thereafter, suspended by the Red Chamber for violation of its rule of conduct.
