Lawmakers reply APC governors, say no aspirant is offering bribe for senate presidency, speakership

Some members of the House of Representatives have denied allegations by the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) that the two aspirants for Senate President and Speaker are offering bribes to their lawmakers with $1 million each to elect them.

Governors elected on the platform of the ruling party in Nigeria, Congress of All Progressives (APC), in a statement to the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, said two aspirants for the positions were offering bribes.

PREMIUM TIMES report exclusively The PGF in a statement called for Mr Tinubu’s intervention in the zoning of the main offices of the federal parliament. The governors recommended a zoning formula for offices.

However, two members of the House, Akin Alabi (APC, Oyo) and Rolland Igbakpa (PDP, Delta) have denied the allegation, saying none of the lawmakers have that kind of money.

Mr. Alabi and Mr. Igbakpa stated this while appearing on PT Twitter Space on Wednesday. Title space: How should the Leadership of the 10th National Assembly be distributed?

Mr. Alabi, who represents Egbeda/Ona-Ara Federal Constituency in Oyo State, said they are lobbying and campaigning for different candidates in the two chambers; however, no one has offered the legislator money to vote in a particular direction.

He recalled that in 2019, members of parliament did not just vote for the current speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, they spent their money to help with logistics.

“In 2019, we did not collect N1 to enter that hall (chamber) and vote for Femi Gbajabiamila, and he had about 200 votes,” he said.

“When someone asked me, ‘where do I go to collect my share money?'” I said in English.

As he added, “I have been in several caucuses – the Southwest meeting, the caucuses of new members and the caucuses of minorities.” We’ve had meetings about the joint task that I talked about earlier, and with the number of meetings we’ve had, I haven’t seen anything like this. It must be a lie, at least for the House of Representatives.

But Mr. Alabi admitted that leadership elections are expensive, especially in terms of logistics. He said aspirants for office must move across the country to visit governors.

“They toured, we talked about seeing the governors. You will not wait for the governor to come down to Abuja. You need them to talk to their counterparts in their states,” he said.

Mr. Alabi disclosed that aspirants sometimes have to hire private jets to make these rounds.

“Do you know how much it costs to rent a private jet? That’s about $10,000 an hour. Imagine doing that consistently,” he said.

Mr. Igbakpa, for his part, has denied the governors’ claim, adding that they have exaggerated the issue.

“For the governors to say somebody is coming up with a million dollars, I think they’ve gone overboard… nobody has that kind of money in parliament, especially in the House of Representatives.

“It’s quite expensive. But no one will distribute such money. Are you telling me someone is going to come up with $360 million? Convert that to Naira. Where does that person get the money from?”. he stated

He also stated that campaigning for the leadership of the National Assembly is expensive.

“It’s quite expensive. When we talk about elections, it’s not the money you give to an individual—the logistics, people have to fly from one country to another. They have to reach out to people. Most of the time, where I come from in Delta State, you cannot visit anyone you are competing with without a bottle of wine,” he said.

About 10 members of the House are vying for the speakership, and eight senators and senators-elect are eyeing the Senate presidency.

On June 13, the 10th National Assembly will be inaugurated and the election of the President of the Senate, the President, the Vice President of the Senate and the Vice President will be held after the nomination of the members.