• Says It’s Fire For Fire’
• Buhari’s Peace Meeting Fails
• I Won”t Resign For Gbajabiamila –Lasun
With the National Assembly resuming today after a five-week break, early signs in Abuja, the seat of Nigeria’s government, is that of anxiety, tension and fear, as all efforts to reconcile the feuding lawmakers over the leadership of both arms of the federal parliament appear to have collapsed.
Even the intervention of President Muhammadu Buhari seems to have yielded no fruits.
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Although the President had consistently maintained that he would not interfere in the affairs of the National Assembly, he has had to bend backwards as the raging crisis appears to be hurting his government, with the stronger potency of tearing down the ruling All Progressives Party (APC).
A meeting called by him, Monday evening, to find a lasting solution to the crisis that has polarised the APC caucus in the House of Representatives ended in a fiasco, as the warring factions individually stuck to their guns. This was in spite of earlier pleas by the president that they sheathe their swords and save the ruling party from further embarrassment.
President Buhari had spoken on the popular NTA programme, Good Morning Nigeria, before the conciliatory meeting held in the banquet hall of the Presidential Villa, which began around 5p.m., lamenting that the bitter struggle over the leadership of the house could affect the performance of his government and give the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) the opportunity to return to power come 2019.
“We must not allow individual personal ambition to succeed in dividing us and allow PDP to deal with us. This is what the National Assembly has allowed so far – the APC is giving the PDP the allowance to take over the government again”, says the president. But the responses of his party’s lawmakers at the meeting showed that the war was far from being over.
As if to signal ahead of the meeting with Buhari and the APC bigwigs, that there was not likely to be any shifting of grounds, embattled House Speaker Yakubu Dogara, had earlier warned that his leadership would not be cowed by any threat from the opposing camp, led by former Minority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila and his supporters.
Few hours before the meeting at the Presidential Villa, Speaker Dogara issued a statement, threatening to crush all oppositions to his leadership, making particular reference to members of the Gbajabiamila faction of his party with whom he has had a running battle since the beginning of the race to emerge Speaker.
Dogara’s warning came in response to the threat by the Gbajabiamila group on Sunday to bring down the roof of the parliament, following rumours that the speaker plans to disallow members of the faction from entering the chamber when the plenary resumes today.
Responding, the Speaker in a statement by Abdulrazak Namdas on behalf of the House Ad-Hoc Committee on Media and Publicity, denied any plan to bar any member from the House today.
Speaker Dogara warned all members, especially those of his ruling APC, to conduct themselves in orderly manner ahead of today’s resumption, or be severely dealt with.
Members of the APC Loyalist Group had been at loggerheads with the Speaker over allocation of the Principal Offices meant for the APC in the lower chamber as he and his supporters, under the auspices of Consolidation Group, have consistently rejected the desire of the APC national leadership to foist some persons on the parliament.
The plenary was thrown into chaos a month ago when loyalists of the Speaker and members of the APC Loyalist Group engaged in an open fight on the floor of the House when the Speaker refused to read what has famously been known as the “letter of anointing” from the party Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun and attempted to read out names of his own anointed candidates.
Paper Over The Crack
Rising from a meeting called by President Buhari yesterday, the gladiators, in company with the APC National Chairman, Chief Odigie-Oyegun tried to paper over the cracks, with indications that the parley did not succeed at reconciling the warring factions. This emerged when the members came out soon after the meeting took off.
Daily Independent gathered that the president merely told the members to go and resolve their differences before resumption of plenary today.
The meeting, which was attended by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, National Chairman of the APC, Odigie-Oyegun, and all APC members of the House of Representatives, lasted just 20 minutes.
Another indication that the last may not have been heard of the crisis, was when the lawmakers gave the press different accounts of the proceedings, with some of them insisting that there would be no peace unless the Speaker Dogara, announces as principal officers the names approved by the party leadership.
Some of the lawmakers said Buhari, who had pledged not to interfere directly in the crisis, merely repeated what he had been saying that it was important for members to respect party supremacy. But some others said the President asked them to go and consult some more among themselves, and with the party leadership, before resumption of plenary today.
Deputy Chairman of the House Media Committee, Abdulrazak Namdas, said the President appealed to the lawmakers to meet with the Party leadership and revert back to him later in the night before the plenary resumes.
Gbajabiamila also told journalists that the meeting dwelt extensively on party supremacy, and that Nigerians would be briefed on the decision reached by the end of the day.
According to him: “We are still talking. But I think this is the first time everybody is coming together in a cordial atmosphere. We came together for the first time as one family, with a lot of camaraderie. I think we are almost at the point where all of these will be behind us. Hopefully by tomorrow (Today).
“It is not about magic, it is about what should have been done a long time ago. We have finally sat down together and we will resolve it before night, in a couple of hours.
“The important thing is that the country wants to move ahead. The House wants to move ahead and the party wants to move ahead. Move ahead, we shall.
“Whoever or whatever outside forces that might have been stoking the fire, I think we would put that to an end this evening at the meeting.”
Chief Odigie-Oyegun declared that “everything is upbeat. You can see that I am smiling. You will be very surprised that a lot was achieved in 20 minutes.
“As the chairman of the party, I can say that there are no discordant tunes; you can see the Speaker of the House standing firmly beside me.
“I have a feeling that in another three or four hours and by tomorrow, we will have a good news for the nation. It is never too late to straighten the path.”
Speaker Dogara appeared to concur with Odigie-Oyegun, saying that “I have always stood firmly by the party, there has never been a time that I never stood firmly by the party.
“So, like my Chairman has explained, we are going into consultations with the party and I am sure sooner than later, we will have good news for Nigeria,” he added.
I Won’t Resign
Another sign that the trouble in the House would not go away very soon, was when ahead of the meeting with the President, Deputy Speaker, Yusuf Suleiman Lasun vowed not to resign his position for the party’s preferred candidate, Gbajabiamila, which had all the while been touted as the only condition out of the logjam.
He warned the APC ‘Loyalists Group,’ led by Gbajabiamila, of the futility of forcing him to resign his position as being proposed. According to Lasun, his emergence was through an election, not an appointment.
Lasun spoke while addressing members of Ilobu Development Association (Abuja Chapter), who paid him a solidarity visit in his office.
“When I look at that angle (resignation), I laugh. Nature itself has a way of regulating things, we cannot want to benefit from where you have not sowed,” Lasun stressed.
Lasun said the pressure on him to resign for Gbajabiamila amounted to cheating the people of his hometown, Ilobu, Osun State whom he said contributed greatly to APC’s victory in the Osun Sstate and presidential election.
“If an Ilobu man is the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives in Nigeria today, we have made our own mark and we have contributed to APC.
“So, anybody talking about Yusuf Lasun resigning only wants to cheat the Ilobu people who have toiled all day and night, having contributed to what APC is in Nigeria today.
“Having gone through an election, it will be difficult for anybody to want to say that the part of the solution, part of options open to APC now is to allow the Deputy Speaker to resign so that there can be peace in the House.” Lasun said.
On the contribution of his hometown, Ilobu to APC’s election victories, Lasun went down memery lane saying his home town contributed in no small measure to the victory of APC in Osun State, and thus deserved the seat of the Deputy Speaker as compensation for its efforts.
Lasun: “Ilobu is not only a big supporter of our party but probably outside Osogbo, the only town whose progressive elections have never been rigged, it is important and I want journalists to underline that. In 2007, we won all our elections in Ilobu and this year, in 2015 we won all our elections as APC and today what is on ground in Osun State is that besides Osogbo, Ilobu is the strongest APC town in the whole of Osun State.
“I want to be statistical. When we had the 2015 elections, everybody in Nigeria knew at that point in time that it was the election that will probably dictate whether APC will be in existence or APC will be strong enough.
“Everybody from the nooks and crannies moved to Osun either to participate or witness the election, and people have suddenly forgotten that about 76, 000 security agents were drafted for that particular election.
“The analysis of that election, Ilobu was number six, in terms of the contributory factor and quality of votes to the emergence of Governor Aregbesola,’’ he added.
-Daily Independent
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