Wase, Betara Groups Explain Meeting With Tinubu, Insist Opposition To Abbas, Kalu Unshaken

Despite a late night meeting with President Bola Tinubu, which had in attendance some members of the All Progressive Congress opposed to the party’s choices for the leadership of the House of Representatives (G-7), a member of the group has told THE WHISTLER that the meeting has not weakened the group.

A member of the Mukhtar Aliyu Betara group, the Borno State lawmaker who’s aspiring for the position of speaker, has allayed fears that the group may have been subdued.

The Member-elect who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that “attending the meeting by some of the G-7 was to honour the office of the president and not a late approval of the decision of the NWC.”

He was speaking when asked why Betara attended the meeting the president held with senators-elect and members-elect as well as some governors late Wednesday night.

Apart from Betara, others in the G-7 that attended the meeting were Yusuf Adamu Gagdi, Miriam Onuoha and Sada Soli.

The G-7 also included the Deputy Speaker, Ahmed Idris Wase and Aminu Sani Jaji, both of whom shunned the meeting with the president.

Alhassan Ado Doguwa and Abubakar Makki Yelleman had earlier pulled out of the G-7.

Doguwa now leads the campaign for Tajudeen Abbas and Benjamin Kalu as House of Representatives speaker and deputy speaker.

The duo were announced as the choice of the party and that of the president.

At the meeting which held yesterday Wednesday after the House adjourned its sitting sine die, Wase and Jaji’s absence may be a strong message to the party.

There was no official reason given for their absence.

The Betara camp denied the G-7 agreed not to attend the meeting when probed further saying, “The office of the president must be honoured. Besides, it’s better to attend the meeting and seize the opportunity to advance the group’s aspiration.

“So nothing like shunning the meeting collectively. Those who did that did so on their own individual accord not collective decision.”

When asked whether it signaled a crack, he said, “We don’t see it so, not even our principal.”

He added that “The group is in order. We are still discussing with the ‘Greater Majority’, so there’s no crack.”

The details of the meeting were revealed by a returning member-elect Sani Bala (APC, Kano), who said the meeting “was done in 40 minutes. The President was clear, he urged us to unite and work for the party’s candidates.

“The party chairman and others that spoke at the meeting reiterated the same call for us to forge a common front.

“They both told us the fact that, if we don’t unite, we may end up having a divided assembly which will not augur well for the President and the nation.

“That was what happened at the meeting we held with the President,” he said.

The APC has been divided since the announcement of Abbas and Kalu.

Despite the meeting with the president, it’s gathered that fear still persists owing to the superior number of the opposition members-elect who formed the ‘Greater Majority’ and the members-elect sympathetic to the cause of the G-7 in the APC.

With the 181 members in the opposition called the ‘Greater Majority’ working together with the G-7, it could swell the rank of the anti-Abbas/Kalu camp on Tuesday, 13 June when the Assembly would be convened to elect its principal officers.