President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has bowed to the pressure from lawmakers of the House of Representatives and conferred the nation’s second highest national honour, the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger, on the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas.
This was made known in a statement on Friday by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.
Recall that in his 64th Independence Anniversary Speech on 1 October, President Tinubu conferred the Commander of the Federal Republic( CFR) on the speaker and the deputy senate president.
This development led to a debate in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, calling on the President to confer a higher honour on the Speaker.
Onanuga stated that President Tinubu was persuaded by the House of Representatives position and has decided to remedy the historical error and oversight.
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“Thus, he has decided to upgrade the Speaker to GCON from CFR, in accordance with the National Order of Precedence.
“The speaker, the Senate President, other principal officers of the National Assembly and the Chief Justice of Nigeria will be formally decorated with their new honours later,” he wrote.
Recall that the House of Representatives had rejected the National Honour conferred on Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas.
The lawmakers accused President Bola Tinubu of discriminating against the lower chamber of the National Assembly after conferring a higher honour to Senate President Godswill Akpabio.
Following a motion of urgent public importance moved by Philip Agbese on Wednesday, the House resolved the Reps are not inferior to Senators, and therefore, both leaders should be treated equally.
The motion, signed by 360 members of the House, called for the abolition of the “upper chamber and lower chamber nomenclature”, stating that both chambers are equal.
