House of Rep Speakership: Gbajabiamila Wins APC Primaries

Out of the 218 lawmakers in the APC caucus of the incoming house of Representatives, 154 have voted for Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila from Lagos state to emerge as the party’s candidate for the Speakership race.

The election held this Saturday at the International Conference Conference in Abuja.

Only 157 lawmakers-elect took part in the election however as scores of others had stormed out of the venue with their preferred candidate, Yakubu Dogara, when it became clear he was not going to win.


Of the 157 who took part, only three voted for Dogara.

So what does Dogara stand to gain by boycotting the elections and upsetting his party leadership?

The Bauchi lawmaker is playing a high stakes game where he is expecting the PDP lawmakers in the House of Representatives to back him.

To achieve this, he has dangled a carrot before them by reportedly choosing Leo Ogor, the former house whip and a member of the PDP as his deputy. The both of them are now expected to run on a joint ticket.

Now let’s do some maths.

If all 61 APC lawmakers who boycotted the election and did not vote; the three who voted for Dogara; the 121 PDP lawmakers and the 10 lawmakers who belong to Labour, APGA and Accord; all decide vote for Dogara, he will get a total of 195 votes which is well ahead of Gbajabiamila’s 154 votes.

All you need is a simple majority to become speaker.

(Jigawa still does not have lawmakers-elect as the elections did not hold there.)

So Dogara clearly believes he stands a fighting chance still. Of course there is no guarantee that he will win all those PDP, Accord, Labour and APGA votes.

But as long as he sees a chance he will remain in the race. And that will be driving the APC leadership mad