The All Progressives Congress, has been in a bad shape for the past few weeks with series of crisis springing up.
On Saturday, June 21, yet another imbroglio was reported by Punch Newspapers, that senators loyal to Senate President, Bukola Saraki, vowed to reject moves by APC National Leader, Bola Tinubu, and other party chieftains to impose Senators Ahmad Lawan and George Akume as the Senate leader and deputy, of the party.
The pair- Senators Ahmed Sani-Yerima and Danjuma Goje, who spoke with journalists in Abuja, stated that they won’t accept the plan by the leadership of the APC to fill the remaining four principal-officer positions with ranking members of the Senate Unity Forum.
The Senators Unity Forum is made up of loyalists of Lawan, who was defeated by Saraki in the Senate Presidency election.
Sani-Yerima, insisted that the pro-Saraki Like Minds senators would resist imposition of principal officers on the chamber, saying that the election of the four principal officers was the exclusive right of the zonal caucuses in the Senate.
He said: “There can never be imposition of candidates on the chamber by the party leadership. As far as I’m concerned, the party cannot impose leadership on us. It is unconstitutional and against the rules of the Senate.”
“The Senate Majority Leader; Deputy Majority Leader; Senate Chief Whip; Deputy Chief Whip were elected by their zonal caucuses in the Seventh Senate and the case of the Eighth Senate cannot be different.”
“The best thing the party can do, given the circumstances, is to give us directives. Any attempt to impose will be resisted and this will further divide the party.”
“We should follow due process. Allowing the party to impose a leadership on the Senate President is to make him to fail because he cannot be forced to work with his rivals. We are committed to giving President Buhari protection in the Senate. What we are doing is definitely not against the President.”
Speaking in a similar vein, Goje warned the party that the imposition of candidates would further polarise the party.
He said, “By trying to impose another set of leaders on the National Assembly is to cause further crisis in the party. It will complicate matters and generate further crisis in the National Assembly.”
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