The Chief of Staff to the President, Rt Hon Femi Gbajabiamila officially resigned his membership of the House of Representatives on Wednesday, 14 June, 2023.
Prior to that event, Gbajabiamila has been appointed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as his Chief of Staff, pending his swearing-in as member representing Surulere Federal Constituency I in the House.
The resignation of Gbajabiamila has thus left a vacant seat in the House necessitating a bye-election to be conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to fill the vacant seat.
The race for who will replace the immeidate past Speaker of the House of Representatives among the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been since the news broke out that Gbajabiamila will eventually be named the Chief of Staff to the President.
Three major contenders emerged: former member of the state House of Assembly, Honourable Kabir Lawal popularly called Caesar; former acting Chairman of Surulere Local Government, Agboola Dabiri; and current Chairman of the party in Surulere Local Government, Fuad Laguda.
The trio were touted to be political disciple of the Chief of Staff and many believed that choice of the party’s candidate would be among them.
They each have their supporters within the rank and file of the party: Caesar arguably has the largest grassroots support among the three; Dabiri has huge support from the elite while Laguda is a mixture of both the grassroots and the elite drawing much experience from his being a former staff of the Lagos Internal Revenue Service (LIRS).
After much politicking and intrigues, thegazellenews.com can authoritatively revealed that Gbajabiamila may have settled for Laguda as the candidate of the party for the coming bye-election.
According to investigations by this medium, Gbajabiamila had informed members of his group that they should go and work for the emergence of Laguda as the candidate.
However, it is yet to be seen whether Gbajabiamila’s choice tally with the other groups in the local government, particularly the group belonging to the former Governor of the state and the immediate past Minister for Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN.
The Fashola group has a distinct structure and wishing them away will not augur well for the annointed aspirant. One should also quickly mentioned the influence of the newly elected Chairman of Lagos State Football Association (LSFA), Ogboni Fouad Oki.
The APC family needs to do a lot of reconciliation and mobilization if they are to win the election.
This is important because Surulere has one of the most set of sophisticated voters in the state, hence the need to thread carefully.
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