Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Adams Oshiomhole last
night said that the party will not share Committee Chairmanship with the
opposition party in the ninth National Assembly.
This is as
Oshiomhole has presented the current Majority Leader of the House, Femi
Gbajabiamila as the adopted candidate of the party for the speakership
position. Hon. Abdulmumini Jibrin Gbajabiamila Campaign Director
confirmed to newsmen that he (Gbajabiamila) was presented to President
Buhari. But a source at the meeting said, President Buhari declined to
make comment on Gbajabiamila.
According to the source, Hon.
Ahmed Wase (APC, Plateau) stood up after the presentation of
Gbajabiamila to express surprise, that after meeting Mr. President to
step down from the position of the speaker and take over as deputy
speaker, his name was not mentioned at the dinner for the position. The
Special Adviser to the President for Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina,
told State House Correspondents that Buhari called for unity among party
members.
Adesina said: “90-95 percent of them are in unison,
seem to agree on the position of the party..unanimity ran through the
meeting. We cannot speak for five percent.
The President urged
them to maintain the unity referring to what transpired in 2015…if there
is disunity in their ranks, then anything can happen. He urged them to
maintain the unity and stand by the position of the party.” The APC
Chairman while making his remarks at the dinner hosted by President
Muhammadu Buhari for House of Representatives members-elect at the Old
Banquet Hall, Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said that the APC
has about 223 members-elect out of the 360 House members and that 67
were re-elected for the ninth assembly, adding that there was no room
for coalition with the opposition as the ruling APC has two-third to
carryout any legislative business including amendment of the
constitution.
According to him “Mr President on your behalf we
have had a meeting, the NWC with the new members of the House of
Representative elect who are yet to be sworn in and later they were
joined by the re-elected members. And so we had an APC caucus of the
house of representative which was held some weeks ago at Yardua center.
“Your
excellency, I found that meeting very revealing just listeninga to the
quality of intervention made by new members yet to be inaugurated. “I am
convinced sir, Nigerians have mDe a very wise choice in electing the
members in the house of representatives. They demonstrated deep
knowledge of the challenges that we face.
They acknowledged the
need to work together as a party. “I think they recogise that Nigeria
realise that we have gone through some avoidable difficulties in
managing your first term because we have what I can easily describe as a
hostile leadership of the national assembly and there is no better
evidence to this that.
The fact that people elected o. The
platform of our party even in the face of pronouncements of the supreme
Court that it is parties that win elections not cadidayes.
“They
were elected on the basis of our platform, they were beneficiaries of
the party and when it suits them they decamped and turned us to a mi
ority a d created tension in the sustem, xecli ex to approve or even
consider nominees fro. “His excellency for various positions, delayed
budget needlessly in order to make I.
Plementation difficult and
created all sorts of obstacles that you will think that the National
Assembly was dominated by members of the opposition yet they were APC
members. “For me sir, what I have found in life there is nothing wrong
once you admit that you are human, kistakes are expected but it ca. Only
become a problem if we repeat mistakes twise.
“From the lessons
we have learnt fro. What happened in 2015 we are determined that in
2019 we’d not repeat those mistakes. We draw the apropriate lessons from
those mistakes and we move on. If you are elected, it means you are
tested and trusted. “Out of 223 APC elected members, about 67 were
re-elected, the rest are new members.
“In other climes, you
don’t go into coalition when you are in the majority, you do so when you
don’t have the numbers. We have the numbers, out of 306, Nigerians
elected 223 APC members because they don’t want Mr. president to face
the trauma of 2015.
“Most of those who decamped were rejected
and even those who led it were uprooted. We cannot as a party which has a
comfortable majority, entrust critical committees in the hands of the
PDP or opposition.
“If Nigerians wanted them, they could have
voted them. In the days of PDP, every committee were chaired by PDP
members. Describing the present leadership of the National Assembly as
selfish, greedy, he said, “We do not need to do business with the devil
for us to survive in the ninth Assembly.
“In African family,
we sit down in a closed door to address issues, the good news is that
there is a role for everyone. “Neither mr president nor the party
expects the National Assembly to be rubber stamps, we don’t have
rubbers…But we will not fight in Wuse market.
“Both the
re-elected and new members are entitled to heading committees “We have
asked our people not to share what belongs to us with other party
members. “I don’t have apologies against forces of retrogression.”
Gbajabiamila’s main challenger, Chairman Committee on Agricultural
Productions and Services, Hon. Muhammad Monguno had last week withdrew
from the race for Speaker of the 9th House of Representatives.
Monguno,
who represents Marte/Monguno/Nganzai Federal Constituency of Borno
State, said Gbajabiamila was the most qualified among all contenders.
Still in the race are House spokesman Abdulrazak Namdas (APC, Adamawa),
Ahmed Wase (APC, Plateau), Chike Okafor from Imo State who declared his
intention yesterday and Umar Bago (APC, Niger). Those in attendance were
Secretary to the Government or the Federation, Boss Mustapha, Chief of
Staff, Abba Kyari, among others.