Muktar Betara, one of the aspirants for the position of speakership of the House of Representatives, has described the consensus candidate picked by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Tajudeen Abbas, as an unknown person.
He stated that the decision of the incumbent speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila to pick Abbas ahead of other popular aspirants is a big surprise to him.
Betara said this on Monday while officially declaring interest in the speakership race. The declaration was attended by six other aspirants that have vowed to work together to reject Abbas.
It would be recalled that the National Working Committee of the APC had resolved to endorse Abbas for Speaker, and Ben Kalu for Deputy Speaker.
However, five of the aspirants, Deputy Speaker Idris Wase, Sada Soli, Ado Doguwa, Ahmed Jaji and Betara have formed an alliance to defeat Abbas.
“I was surprised that my friend and my boss (Gbajabiamila) nominated one person outside of all of us here. If today, the Deputy Speaker is contesting, the chairman appropriation is contesting, the Majority Leader is contesting, then who is closer to the Speaker? So nobody. He is picking somebody that members of the 9th Assembly don’t know. A lot of us don’t know him,” Betara said.