Apparently wary of the negative impact the lingering National Assembly leadership crisis is having on the current administration, President Muhammadu Buhari has commenced last-minute moves to settle the fracas in the legislature once and for all. Accordingly, the president will, for the first time since the crisis erupted, meet with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, his deputy and all the All Progressives Congress (APC) members of the house today in Aso Villa, Abuja. The senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, confirmed the meeting to State House correspondents yesterday.

LEADERSHIP gathered reliably that top on the list of agenda of the meeting scheduled to hold at the banquet hall of the presidential villa by 5pm is how to resolve the issues of key positions in the House that have torn the APC caucus apart. A dependable presidency source told our correspondent that the meeting with the APC Reps is one among other parleys President Buhari will be holding with APC federal lawmakers, as another meeting with APC senators is also in the offing. According to the source who preferred not to be named in print, “the president has concluded that he cannot just fold his arms and watch the legislature, which is also an integral part of the federal government under his watch, stray for too long when the APC government is supposed to be acting as one in setting the pace for good governance in line with their campaign promises for Nigerians. “The meeting tomorrow (today) is an indication that, as the leader of the country and the party, President Buhari, who had hitherto vowed not to meddle in the affairs of the National Assembly, has finally resolved to wade into the crisis for the interest of the party and the entire country. A dependable presidency source told our correspondent that the meeting with the APC Reps is one among other parleys President Buhari will be holding with APC federal lawmakers, as another meeting with APC senators is also in the offing.

According to the source who preferred not to be named in print, “the president has concluded that he cannot just fold his arms and watch the legislature, which is also an integral part of the federal government under his watch, stray for too long when the APC government is supposed to be acting as one in setting the pace for good governance in line with their campaign promises for Nigerians.“The meeting tomorrow (today) is an indication that, as the leader of the country and the party, President Buhari, who had hitherto vowed not to meddle in the affairs of the National Assembly, has finally resolved to wade into the crisis for the interest of the party and the entire country. “To avoid the crisis from continuing unabated now that the House has resumed its session, hence frustrating the legislative process under his government, the president feels he should discuss with all parties involved in the rift and urge them to come up with a better way of achieve their aim without necessarily resorting to rancour”, the source added. As for the Senate crisis, he said, “There are also plans by the president to meet with the APC members in the Senate to address the fracas. But this will come only after the issue of fraudulent forgery of the Senate rules must have been properly investigated and treated by the relevant security agencies”.

Obviously in preparation for the reconciliation parley today, a factional leader of the House, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, was at the presidential villa on Friday where he had a closed-door meeting with the president. The source added that “the idea of tomorrow’s (today’s) meeting is to talk to Speaker Dogara and his faction to stop anti-party activities in the House and begin a reconciliation process that would unite the APC members in the House, with a view to forming a formidable majority in the Green Chamber of the National Assembly”.LEADERSHIP recalls that at the meeting with the president on July 1, the Gbajabiamila faction had implored President Buhari to call Speaker Dogara and members of his group to order. LEADERSHIP also recalls that senior special assistant to the resident on media and publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, who had explained why Buhari did not want to interfere in the National Assembly crisis, had noted, however, that in the event where the governors wrre unable to resolve the matter, the president would wade in directly. In the Green Chamber, an attempt by Speaker Yakubu Dogara to ensure the use of federal character principle in sharing the principal offices in the House has further polarised members. The Speaker had come up with what is now referred as ‘Dogara Formula’ which is a clear deviation from the instructions of the leadership of the governing APC, which had earlier directed him to announce the names of Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, Alhassan Doguwa, Mohammed Tahir Monguno and Pally Iriase as majority leader, deputy leader, chief whip and deputy chief whip of the House respectively.

Prominent members of the Gbajabiamila-led The Loyalists Group, namely Doguwa, Iriase and Monguno, openly bought into the Dogara formula during a joint press briefing at the weekend in Abuja, but their group immediately disowned them, saying they acted on their own. Meanwhile, the group yesterday said it had accepted Monguno’s apology, adding that he was misled during earlier joint press conference with the Dogara’s Consolidation Group on Saturday. At a press conference in Abuja yesterday addressed by the spokesman of the Gbajabiamila Group, Hon. Nasiru Sani Zangon-Daura and attended by about 20 members of the group, they insisted that they will not allow Nigerians to be short-changed over the ‘change’ they voted for. The group further alleged an “unholy” alliance between Speaker Dogara and members of the opposition PDP in the House in order to, according to it, thwart President Muhammad Buhari’s change agenda. “We are also cognizant that in politics there are always the subversive activities and antics of 5th columnists in any political movement to contend with. We are also aware that this unholy alliance is a bid to truncate President Muhammadu Buhari’s agenda, which includes his anti-corruption stance, by using the National Assembly to, at the very minimum, slow it down if they cannot stop this presidential initiative dead cold.

“We know that this unholy agreement between the disloyal Dogara group and the PDP entails the deployment of PDP members and the disloyal APC group in strategic positions in the structures and committees of the House. The purpose of this strategic deployment is to enable the PDP to indirectly dictate the pace and activities of the National Assembly to the detriment of our party’s goals and objectives,” Zangon-Daura said. The group deplored what it called the continued defiance of the APC and the party House Caucus by Dogara as indicated in his “disloyal letter” to the APC national chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, saying that it was not aware of any concession made by the Dogara group to theirs (Loyalists Group), contrary to insinuations in the media. “To have a genuine agreement that is not tainted by the PDP, the Dogara group will have to, first of all, cut off the umbilical cord between them and the PDP and, secondly, engage in candid reconciliatory discussions with our group as a whole through our approved members under the leadership of Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila,” he added. For his part, Hon. Aliyu Sani Madaki (APC, Kano), who was present at the briefing, argued that Speaker Dogara and his group cannot rely on the principle of federal character when he (Dogara) as the Speaker of the House and Senate President Bukola Saraki are both northerners.


Gbajabiamila’s Men Blackmailing For Selfish Reasons – Jibrin

Reacting to the allegation that the Speaker is in an unholy alliance with the PDP to truncate Buhari’s agenda, the spokesman of the Consolidation Group, Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin, said it was unfounded and “cheap blackmail” by the rival group. “What has Buhari brought to the House or what has Dogara done to undermine Buhari?” Jibrin queried. He also said that there was no plan to bar any member of the House from gaining access to the chamber tomorrow, wondering how a member of a majority party could be denied entry by a minority group. Jibrin added that members of the Loyalists Group had now resorted to blackmail, having failed to stampede Speaker Dogara into written commitments over their headship and membership of ‘juicy’ committees of the House.

Tension Mounts In Senate

In the Senate, the alleged falsification of its Standing Rules 2011 ahead of the elections of Senators Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu as Senate president and deputy respectively on June 9, which is being investigated by the police, is already causing ripples in the upper chamber, with law enforcement agents said to be closing in on the perpetrators for possible prosecution. LEADERSHIP gathered that senators will raise the issue on the floor when they reconvene tomorrow as it borders on the propriety of the elections of Saraki and Ekweremadu as presiding officers. Speaking on the development, spokesman of the Senator Ahmed Lawan-led Unity Forum, Senator Kabiru Marafa (Zamfara, APC), when contacted by LEADERSHIP on the alleged impeachment moves against the Senate leadership and the suspension of members of the Unity Forum, he responded via a text message. “How do you impeach what is not there? Anyway, my understanding of the case is: we are in court challenging the events of June 9, 2015 based on the evidence we gave the police. “The police report will help the court in determining our case. If the court agrees with the police, it will, in addition to handing down appropriate sanctions, nullify the events of that day. That’s all! On the rumoured suspension, I pray it is true.”

in case

About time

Baba, thats a wise move to make...but please, whatever the outcome be, dont let anytin rubbish your good name- your neutral stand has been so on point...wish u success on this move

p

Good to see the president has finally decided to play his role as the party's national leader. His initial indifference is one of the reasons why the crisis has protracted for so long. Now, we expect Baba to help find a quick and lasting solution.

Its time PMB cuts everyone in NASS to size and any refusal such persons should be summarily dealt with.
This 8th NASS haven't done a single thing but have created crisis that can last the entire four years term.

This is el classico..its getting interesting...!!

I hope it works out. Tired of all these shenanigans.