Aminu Tambawal Is New Speaker Of The House

Aminu Waziri Tambawal, the former Deputy Chief Whip of the House of Representatives, has emerged its new Speaker. Aminu polled 252 votes to defeat the anointed candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mulikat Adeola-Akande from Oyo State who who managed to garner 90 votes.
Tambawal, the North-west candidate who hails from Kebbi State, is reported to have been smuggled into chamber as the Goodluck Jonathan people wanted him arrested because they had “zoned” the speakership to the Southwest.
Following a two-day retreat of the Action Congress of Nigeria at the weekend, former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu, who heads the party, was said to have instructed the party’s legislators-elect to support the candidature of Tambawal, as part of the party’s renewed engagement with the Northwest. 

Tinubu has emerged a big, if unreliable, player in the nation’s politics.  Originally known to have been supporting the candidature of Representative Mrs Mulikat Akande-Adeola he switched his attentions to Tambawal over the weekend, reportedly in the effort to heal political injury caused to his relationship with General Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the Congress for Political Change whom he abandoned in favour of Jonathan at the presidential polls.
The emergence of Tambawal effectively drives another nail into the zoning mechanism of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which had wanted to retain the speakership in the Southwest.  It would also make a major turn in the imposition of candidates by the party on its elected members.
Meanwhile, the former Speaker of the House, Dimeji Bankole, was arrested last night on a variety of corruption allegations.  He may be charged to court as early as today.