President Muhammadu Buhari and APC governors have resolved to wade into the lingering leadership crisis rocking the National Assembly, particularly the Senate. Accordingly, the governors, at a meeting with the President in Aso Rock late Tuesday night, agreed to call the senators to order and caution them against treating the decisions of the party with disdain.
At the meeting which started at about 11pm and ended in the early hours of Wednesday, they resolved that the federal lawmakers must be reoriented on the need to respect party supremacy on any matter.
Imo State governor and chairman of the APC governors’ forum, Rochas Okorocha, who spoke to journalists after the meeting, noted that the governors were worried about the rancour in the National Assembly, especially the red chamber.
Okorocha said their meeting with the President was more reassuring, as it became clear to them that there was light at the dark end of the tunnel.
He added that they commended the President on the efforts he had taken so far towards addressing the country’s parlous economy which was already on the brink of collapse when Buhari came on board.
Okorocha said: “With all these achievements and progress we are making, we are worried by the pockets of disagreements going on at the National Assembly. We have resolved that we came from a party and our party’s views should be respected.
“So, we feel that there is the need for us to invite our senators and look more into the matter and see how we can all make peace. We believe that everyone should respect our party from which we all came from and, for that reason, we have decided that we are going to invite our senators and rub minds with them.
“We are saying that there should not be a winner-takes-it-all; that we should carry everybody along and accommodate others as suggested by the party.”
Also shedding more light on the meeting, Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole stated that the president and the governors specifically decided that all APC senators must, as a matter of necessity, learn to adopt the position of the party.
Oshiomhole said: “We were all elected on the platform of the party. We are not just a collection of individuals; we are a political party and when the party has spoken we must listen, otherwise if it was a game of individuals, like golf, then individuals can go their way.
“I think it is very clear at this point that the party has the responsibility to keep the system going, so as progressive governors we have listened to the President and we have discussed extensively and we are clear that the party’s position should be supported by the senators.
“This is the way it should be. We, as governors, we listen to the party; we expect our senators to also listen to the party. We are going to call them and tell them this is it and explain our reasons. It is about party supremacy.”
Dispute won’t consume party – Oyegun
He also described former President Goodluck Jonathan as a disappointment to South South people for failing in governance.
Oyegun, who spoke through the party’s vice chairman, South South, Chief Hillard Itah, at the inauguration of South South Coalition Support Group at the party’s national secretariat, said the crisis will soon be over.
The APC national chairman flayed the opposition for thinking that the crisis within the party will disintegrate it, though he admitted that the matter had caused many APC members sleepless nights.
“Let me use this opportunity to tell each and every one of you that what is going on in the National Assembly is mere politics. It is nothing other than politics. Those who believe that this is the beginning of the end of APC have a very long time to wait, for, indeed, dispensations after dispensations, the APC will be here to give good governance to the people of Nigeria,” he said.
“The truth is that most of us are in politics because of enlightened self-interest. Some, the interest might not be so enlightened, and so when you come into politics, one of the fundamental ingredients of politics is contest. There are offices to be contested for in the National Assembly and you must have these kinds of situations if a political party has internal democracy as one of the leading principles in its conduct of its affairs.
“Now the difference between you and the dying PDP is that the people had never been given leadership; it had always been packaged and given to them. Nigerians have been accustomed to this for the past 16 years. So what is happening today is a departure from that culture and so it seems to us as if anything is amiss.”
According to him, what is happening in the National Assembly is what naturally happens in other climes when people contest for offices, even as he appealed to the media not to sensationalize the goings-on.
“So I want to appeal to the practitioners of the 4th Estate of the Realm that they should not make a mountain out of a mole hill, if I may borrow the cliché. Nothing of the sort as being speculated by the PDP is happening in the APC. The APC is not going to unravel, the APC is going to be solid decades from now.”
Oyegun added that the party was working hard to recover its mandate in Rivers and Akwa Ibom states, and also win the gubernatorial election in Bayelsa State.
The APC chairman further described former President Jonathan as a poor representative of the region, and praised APC party men in the South South for turning their back on him.
He said: “One of our own was the former president of the country, but I dare to say that he was not the best put forward for the country. He was indeed a disgrace to us.
“But let me also say that in taking his stance for Nigeria and against one of our own, we projected a picture of absolute and sublime patriotism. Every member of the South South APC is an unquantifiable, indescribable patriot of Nigeria for avoiding emotions and sentiments and only looking for the progress of Nigeria.”
16 APC Governors Attended The Meeting
The APC leadership had, yesterday, written to the leadership of the Senate, specifically the president of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, who was the candidate of the rival Like Minds Senators group, to inform him of the choice of the party for the position of Senate leader, deputy Senate leader, chief whip and deputy chief whip.
Rising on five orders from the Senate Rules Book, Senate Gbenga Ashafa said he had expected the Senate president to have read the letter on the floor in order to put an end to the leadership tussle currently rocking it.
He said, “I was expecting the letter which has been received will be read on the floor of the House to resolve the leadership tussle. By virtue of being a member of the majority party, I believe, and strongly so, that the letter should have been read on the floor of the Senate as this would have resolved the leadership tussle.”
But he was immediately countered by Sen Bala N’allah, who accused Sen Ashafa of misleading other senators by quoting the Senate Rules cited to mean that the party should nominate the candidates, rather than that the nomination should come from senators belonging to the party.
“The right thing is ‘nominated from’, and not ‘by’ the majority party,” he said. “With due respect, the portion explains why the Senate president should not read the letter allegedly sent by the party. This matter cannot stand.”
N’allah’s position was greeted with applause from his colleagues before the Senate president ruled Senator Ashafa out of order.
LEADERSHIP reports that the APC leadership and the Like Minds Senators group have been engaged in a war over an attempt by the former to impose candidates for leadership slots after its attempt to do so for Senate president and deputy Senate president failed.
The candidates proposed by the party are Sen Ahmad Lawan for leader (North East), Sen George Akume (North Central) for deputy leader, Sen Shola Adeyeye (South West) for chief whip and Sen Abu Ibrahim for deputy chief whip.
NASS Principal Officers: Reps Zonal Caucuses Reject APC Nominations
The APC North Central and South East caucuses in the House of Representatives yesterday rejected the party’s nominees to occupy four vacant principal offices in the newly inaugurated 8th House.
The zonal caucuses which were excluded from the APC nominations insisted that the principle of federal character as enshrined in the constitution must be adhered to in filling the vacant positions.
The APC national working committee (NWC) had on Tuesday, in a letter to the House speaker, Yakubu Dogara, listed the approved principal officers as: House Leader, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila (South West); Deputy House Leader, Hon. Alhassan Ado Doguwa (North West); Chief Whip, Hon. M.T. Monguno (North East) and Deputy Chief Whip, Hon. Pally Iriase (South South).
Addressing newsmen yesterday, the Ahman Aliyu Pategi-led North Central caucus said the group had resolved to “pursue the injustice via all civil and legitimate channels.”
“We believe it will be inconsiderate of the party to consider both the North East and South West zones after both zones had produced both the Speaker and Deputy Speaker respectively,”Pategi stated.
At another briefing, the two APC House members from the South East, Chike Okafor and Chukukere Austin, both from Imo state, lamented that the party negated the spirit of equity and fairness in ceding the remaining four positions to regions that had already secured principal positions in the House.
They noted that while they remain obedient party members, the present position of the party had negated the precedence of the past where every region would have a representative in the leadership of the House.
LEADERSHIP recalls that the APC South-South Caucus in the House had on Tuesday rejected the position of Deputy Chief Whip allocated to it.
In a statement signed by its leader, Hon. Pally Iriase, it lamented what it called a deliberate effort to marginalize the zone in the sharing formula.
No comments:
Post a Comment