By BASHIR ADEFAKA
Monitored from Lagos by The DEFENDER, the Nigeria”s 10th National Assembly on Tuesday produced its Speaker of the House of Representatives in the person of Tajudeen Abbas, lawmaker representing Zaria Federal Constituency.
Abbas, who was elected in an open ballot system, was elected by members of the House, scoring 353 votes to defeat fellow contenders namely; Ahmed Wase and Sani Jaji, who polled three votes each.
Dr Abbas was born on October 1, 1963, in Kaduna State. He hails from the Zazzau Emirate and is a prince with the traditional title of the Iyan Zazzau.
He holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Business Administration from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna, in 1988 and 1993 respectively and furthered his education by completing a doctorate degree in business management at the Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto in 2010.
Abbas became a lecturer at the Kaduna State University (KASU) between 1993 to 2001 and, from 2001 to 2005, worked as a Marketing Manager at the Nigerian Tobacco Distribution Company, now the British-American Tobacco Company.
He left private and academia to join politics in 2010, where he contested for the House of Representatives seat in 2011 and won.
He sponsored the highest number of bills in the 8th assembly between 2015 and 2019 and also sponsored record-breaking 74 bills out of which 21 were signed into law between 2019 to 2023.
He had served in more than seven committees in the House since 2015 including Commerce, Finance, Special Duties, Defence, Public Procurement, and National Planning and Economic Development Committee.
Until his emergence as the Speaker, Abbas was the House Committee Chairman for Land Transport.
