Thursday, March 28, 2024

10th NASS leadership: Abbas, Kalu extend Olive Branch to opponents, task NWC on reconciliation

BY BENEDICT NWACHUKWU, ABUJA

The anointed aspirants of the All Progressives Congress for the position of Speaker and Deputy Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas and Benjamin Kalu, on Tuesday,  stormed the party’s national headquarters in Abuja with over 100 members to reassure the party’s National Working Committee of their unquestionable loyalty to the party, the incoming government and the Nigerian populace.

Abbas, while speaking during the meeting said, “For the role you (NWC) played in the emergence of myself and my colleague as the candidates of the party for the June 13 election of the leadership of the House of Representatives, we want to thank you and we want to impress on you that you have chosen the right people.

“We will do everything humanly possible to protect the interest of the party, to protect the interest of the government and to protect the interest of the Nigerian populace.

“You can take it to the market Mr. Chairman that we are at it together. I want to use this opportunity Mr. Chairman to complete one item in your resume, you have won parliamentary, several times; you were a party man several times; you were in the executive several times; you have delivered the president-elect of our party this time around.

“What is outstanding to complete your resume is to deliver the leadership of the National Assembly 2023.”

Abbas added, “I want to urge you, Mr. Chairman and members of the NWC, that if tomorrow you have done one leg of your job, that is the endorsement of the people that will represent the party in the next dispensation, the next is to come all out, to support, to encourage, to convince every member who has a vote to come and vote for your candidate come June 13.

“Finally, Mr. Chairman, I also want to urge you as our leader – the leader of all the contestants both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, we are all your children, we want to urge you to use the position God has given you and all the members of the NWC to do whatever you can to call all our co-contestants to the table, we are more than willing to sit down and agree, on a mutual basis, what we need to do to move the National Assembly forward.

“We want your leadership to be in the driver’s seat, we will cooperate, we will do everything humanly possible to make sure that we will operate as one from June 13.”

Fielding questions from the media on how far he has gone with extending the olive branch to other contestants, he said, “To the best of our knowledge, the party is resolute on its earlier decision to sustain the announcement made earlier. We are not aware there’s any change of decision concerning the candidature of my humble self and my colleague from the House of Reps and my colleague in the Senate. There has not been anything like that to the best of our knowledge.

“The issue of reaching out, I can assure you we are doing the best we can. Just a week ago, if you have observed three aspirants, one of them is here with us, they have come out publicly to declare their support for us. As we are talking today, I am engaging not less than three other contestants. We are talking and hopeful that at the end of the day, we will be able to reach a precise destination.”

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