Abbas secured 353 votes out of the 359 votes cast for the Speakership position.
All opposition party members including those elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, Labour Party and New Nigeria People’s Party voted for the anointed candidate of the All Progressives Congress and President Bola Tinubu for Speaker of the House of Representatives in the 10th National Assembly.
Tajudeen Abbas, the candidate of the ruling APC, emerged as the Speaker of the 10th House on Tuesday after securing victory in the election.
Abbas secured the votes of all the members of the seven opposition parties that form the minority caucus in the House to beat his contenders to the seat.
Collectively, the number of opposition members in the House is more than that of the ruling party.
The outgoing Deputy Speaker, Ahmed Wase and Sani Jaji, who contested against Abbas only managed to get six votes, three votes each which all came from APC members.
SaharaReporters learnt that all members of the Labour Party, PDP and NNPP voted for the anointed candidate of Tinubu and the APC despite the seeming bad blood between the ruling party and the opposition.
For instance, the Labour Party, the PDP and their presidential candidates, Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar are challenging Tinubu’s victory in the 2023 election as the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja.
Apart from PDP, LP and NNPP, other opposition parties in the 10th House are the All Progressives Grand Alliance, Social Democratic Party, African Democratic Congress and the Youth Progressive Party.
All 117 members of the PDP, 35 members of the LP, 19 members of the NNPP and five APGA members in the House voted for the anointed candidate of the ruling APC and President Tinubu for Speakership.
The two members of the SDP, two members of the ADC and one member of the YPP also voted for Abbas.
Out of the 178 members of the APC in the House, only six did not vote for Abbas, including his two contenders – Wase and Jaji – who voted for themselves.
Therefore, Abbas secured 353 votes out of the 359 votes cast for the Speakership position.
In the Senate, some members of the PDP and Labour Party also voted for Godswill Akpabio, the candidate of the APC and Tinubu for Senate President.
Akpabio, a former Akwa Ibom governor, emerged as the 10th President of the Senate after defeating Senator Abdulaziz Yari.
Akpabio, a former Senator Minority Leader secured 63 votes to defeat Yari, a former governor of Zamfara, who had 46 votes.