Upon his appointment as the Chief of Staff to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Femi Gbajabiamila resigned his position as the lawmaker representing the Surulere 1 federal constituency of Lagos State at the house of representatives.
His resignation is in line with the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria. Chapter 8. Part 2. Section 306 (1) of the Constitution states: “Save as otherwise provided in this section, any person who is appointed, elected or otherwise selected to any office established by this Constitution may resign from that office by writing under his hand addressed to the authority or person by whom he was appointed, elected or selected.”
Subsection 7 states: “The notice of resignation of a member of a legislative house shall be addressed to the President of the Senate or, as the case may require, to the Speaker of the legislative house in question.”
First elected to the house of representatives in 2003, he won his sixth term bid in the last general elections.
A lawyer by profession, Gbajabiamila had previously served as minority whip, minority leader, opposition leader, and majority leader before getting elected as speaker in 2019 after failure to clinch the position in 2015.
Consequently, his seat has now been declared vacant by the Speaker of the House, Tajudeen Abass after the 10th assembly is inaugurated.
According to the constitution, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is expected to organize a by-election where the APC would have to nominate another candidate to contest with candidates from opposition parties for the vacant seat.
INEC will have to announce a timeline for the by-election which will be held across all the polling units under the Surulere 1 federal constituency.