Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila, has touched on being considered Chief of Staff to President-elect Bola Tinubu.
Loyalists and allies have commenced intense lobbying to take up various positions in Tinubu’s cabinet, since the former Governor of Lagos was declared winner of a controversial election last month.
Gbajabiamila disclosed to State House correspondents after a meeting of the National Working Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) with the party’s lawmakers-elect, that he knows nothing about being Tinubu’s Chief of Staff.
According to him, the reason why he didn’t collect his certificate of return beforehand was because he was campaigning for APC in Lagos ahead of the gubernatorial election.
He said, “I don’t know anything about that chief of staff thing. All I heard was that I didn’t come here last week to pick up my certificate of return and for that reason, somebody conjectured that I must be in line for the office because I didn’t care about my mandate.
“I was in Lagos and I could not leave Lagos because I was campaigning for my party. That’s number one. Again, it will interest you to known that I was not here four years ago to pick up my certificate of return from INEC because I couldn’t make it. I don’t think it is anything significant. I’ll pick up my certificate today or tomorrow,” he said.
On the meeting with the party leadership, he said “the meeting was to bring members-elect, both Senate and the House together, to assure members that in spite of all the odds against the party, we were able to overcome and we were able to congratulate everybody.
“On the issue of zoning, we did not talk about it because, we’ re not there yet. We have an election coming up this weekend. And we needed to make sure that everybody goes back home, roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty. We’re not there yet so we need to compel the victory before we start talking about the leadership of the national assembly. The reason we didn’t discuss zoning is because we all agreed to tarry for a while until we finish the elections.”