Why Dr. Tajudeen Abass Top Agenda For The 10th NASS Speakership

~Prince, Oriri Richard

The Nigerian National Assembly will officially be inaugurated on the 13th June, 2023 for legislative businesses to commence, having successfully completed the 2023 General elections and members of the both Chambers of the National Assembly of 469 members, have been duly elected from their various Federal Constituencies and Senatorial Districts across the Country.

The hovering controversial issue among stakeholders of the various political parties before 13th June is the leadership selection process of both Chambers. Who gets what, when and how, according to Harold Laswell’s definition of politics, has been the heated arguments amongst Nigerians.

Foreseeing that the polity would be overheated, considering the diverse interests from the Eight Political Parties that made it this time into the Nigerian National Assembly, Dr. Abdullahi Adamu, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress – APC, sometimes in March, 2023, said that the Party would work with the President elect to zoning the national Assembly positions.

On the 13th of March, 2023, the APC leaders and the President and Vice President-elect met with all Senators and House of Representatives elect on the platform of APC at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, where issues bothering on zoning were discussed and members elect were advised by the leadership of the Party to go home and wait for Party’s position for the Assembly leadership zoning before inauguration of Parliament.

On the 8th of May, 2023, the ruling party, APC, through its National Working Committee-NWC, came up with the zoning arrangement where the position of Senate President was zoned to South-South and narrowed down to Senator Godswill Akpabio and for the Speakership, the NWC chooses Dr. Abbas Tajudeen, a ranking member of the house of representatives, was chosen as Speaker from Kaduna, North-West and Senator Barau Jibrin, Senator representing Kano North, was selected as Deputy Senate President from Kano, North-West, while Benjamin Kalu, the current house spokesperson, was nominated as Deputy Speaker from Abia State, South-East geopolitical zone.

Reacting to rumours that Dr. Tajudeen ABASS was preferred by the majority of the Southern lawmakers elect because he’s not from the North, Pastor Eze Nwachukwu Eze, a renowned politician from the South-East, and an 8yrs State Chairman of APC in Ebonyi State and the National President of the newly elected members of the 10th House of Representatives, Pastor Eze Nwachukwu downplayed the issue. Eze opined that newly elected members believed in capacity, competence of aspirant with democratic leadership style, which according to him, can be attributed to Dr. T.J Abbas.

In his words, “with Dr. Abbas’s democratic leadership style, which the new members have taken note of from his profile and other means of investigation, every member of the 10th Assembly shall be given equal opportunity to participate, exchange ideas freely, and discussions shall be encourage on the floor of the house”. In life, the law of favour is Value and Competence. Dr. Tajudeen ABBAS has alot of values and competence to offers the new members and we want to leverage on that. He stressed.

On National unity, Pastor Eze Nwachukwu Eze said there are broken walls and open wounds along religious and ethnic lines in Nigeria after the general elections. The Country needs leadership that can heal the common wounds and restore unity back, which according to Eze, are qualities the newly elected members have found in the right Dr. T.J Abbas. It will interest you to know that among all our colleagues aspiring to lead us, it’s only Dr. Abbas who has a Christian sister as his personal Secretary from the South-East and a Christian brother as his personal driver also from the South-West. This alone has shown to us how patriotic he is and what he can do if elected by the way of carrying all interests along in his leadership decisions. Eze opined.

Eze went further to reiterated that, he’s a Party man who will always stand by the instructions of the leadership of his Party. By the special grace of God, Dr. Tajudeen Abbas and Hon. Benjamin Kalu will be sworn in as Speaker and Deputy Speaker respectively as we go in for the inauguration on the 13th June, 2023. He reiterated.

Hon. Dr Abbas Tajudeen was born on October 1st, 1963 in Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria. He is an educationist and politician representing Zaria Federal Constituency in the National Assembly.

Hon Abbas attended Kaduna Teacher’s College (KTC) Kaduna, where he obtained a grade II certificate in 1981. His quest for further learning took him to the great Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he studied business administration. He graduated in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree. In 1993, he obtained a master’s degree in business administration from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. In 2010 he completed a doctorate degree in business management at the Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto.

Hon Abbas was a primary school teacher from 1981 to 1988. In 1998, he became a lecturer at a polytechnic before moving to the Kaduna State University (KASU) in 1993. He taught at KASU until 2001. From 2001 to 2005, he was a marketing manager at NTC Plc.

Hon. Abbas was elected into the National Assembly in 2011 to represent Zaria Federal Constituency. He was re-elected in 2015 under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Honourable Abbas has legislative interests in: appropriation, finance, education, national planning, health and public procurement.

Hon. Abbas has served in various House committees such as National Planning & Economic Development, Public Procurement, Defense, Social Duties, Finance and Commerce. He also served as Vice Chairman at Legislative Compliance Committee from May 2011 to May 2015.

Honourable Abbas target as a legislator is to ensure that the Nigerian masses are better provided with the basic and sound
education, that the resources of the Nigerian masses are better managed to provide essential services for growth and in the overall interest of every citizen.

Honourable Abbas has many awards & Honours. Some of which includes: Fellow of the Association of Hospitality Management of Nigeria,
Best Head of Department – Kaduna State Polytechnic(1993),
Best Service Manager – Nigerian Institude of Management, Zaria (2009).