The peace committee chaired by Sokoto State
Governor, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, appeared to
have failed to resolve the leadership tussle in
the caucus of the All Progressives Congress at
the House of Representatives.
The indication of this came on Wednesday as
the leadership of the House on Wednesday
dismissed as “nothing like party position” an
earlier letter the APC wrote to the Speaker,
Mr. Yakubu Dogara, on the zoning of principal
offices.
After the Tambuwal committee met with the
group led by Dogara, and that of a former
Minority Leader, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, the
issue at the centre of the crisis – the sharing of
four principal offices – remained unresolved.
Findings showed that the Gbajabimaila group,
at its meeting with Tambuwal, had restated its
stance that the decision of the APC on the
allocation of the offices must stand.
The party had written to the Speaker that the
South-West should produce the Majority
Leader; North-West, Deputy Leader; North-
East, Chief Whip; and South-South, Deputy
Whip.
However, the North-East and the South-South
later swapped their positions, but still said they
remained loyal to the APC.
An offer to Gbajabiamila to head the AdHoc
Committee on Constitution Review in place of
being the majority leader of the 8th Assembly,
was also reportedly turned down by the former
minority leader.
The PUNCH had earlier reported that the
Dogara group too had maintained its stance
that federal character and zonal balancing must
be reflected in the sharing of the positions “in
such a way that no zone of the country” would
be left out.
“It was this same position that they presented
before the Tambuwal committee last night”, a
National Assembly official told our
correspondent on Wednesday.
However, the spokesman for the Dogara group,
Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin, on Wednesday said
that at the meeting with Tambuwal, the group
agreed to concede the House leader to the
Gbajabiamila group “provided that neither the
South-West nor the North-East” would take the
position.
Jibrin added that, in the event the
Gbajabiamila group did not accept the
“concession”, all the APC caucuses in the House
would go for an election to decide who would
become the majority leader.
Jibrin also said similar elections would be
conducted to fill the three other positions in
line with the provisions of the relevant rules of
the House.
“The entire APC members would hold an
election to elect the House leaders. If someone
says he has 174 members, fine; let us hold an
election and see if he actually has that majority
he claims,” Jibrin told a news conference.
Our correspondent observed that the
‘concession’ implied that Gbajabiamila would
still not be the majority leader, an indication
that no headway had been achieved.
Gbajabiamila’s group confirmed this in a
statement it issued soon after Jibrin spoke with
journalists.
It said that the group indeed met with
Tambuwal and made its position known that
party supremacy must prevail.
It said that the sharing of the positions
remained the way the APC originally zoned
them.
“To the best of our knowledge, no counter-
offer has been made to the APC Loyalists’
group after her first meeting with Tambuwal
peace committee, wherein the APC loyalists
clearly stated that in line with party supremacy
resolution reached at the last APC NEC
meeting, the position of the party on Femi
Gbajabiamila as the House Leader is non-
negotiable,” a member of the group, Mr. Rufai
Chachangi, said in a statement.
However, like the Dogara group, the
Gbajabimaila group also subscribed to the
proposal of conducting elections to pick the
House leaders.
The statement added, “However, as a group
that wants peace and quick solution to the
logjam in the House, the APC Loyalists group
would equally subscribe to an election among
entire members of the APC House Caucus,
where all members, irrespective of zones,
would exercise their right to elect their
principal officers.”
It expressed surprise that the Dogara group,
which had opposed zoning before the
speakership election, was now canvassing
zoning.
It also queried the suitability of a South-East
member for any principal position in breach of
House rules when the zone’s only two APC
members in the House were first timers and
not qualified to hold leadership positions.
On the Tambuwal committee, the group noted,
“In playing his mediatory role , the former
House Speaker, Governor Tambuwal agreed to
take our position to Dogara’s group for
consideration and convene a joint meeting of
both groups, which is yet to be convened as of
Wednesday evening.
“So, any purported decision reeled out to the
public in the name of the National Assembly
peace pact before such joint meeting is
lopsided and not acceptable to the APC
Loyalists’ group.”
However, giving the official position of the
House on the crisis, a member of the House
AdHoc Committee on Media and Public Affairs,
Mr. Abdulrazak Namdas, said the House backed
the sharing of the positions among all the six
geo-political zones in the country.
He dismissed the APC’s letter to Dogara, saying
that it did not follow due process by getting the
approval of the National Working Committee of
the party and the ratification of its National
Executive Committee.
He said, “For the House, we believe that this so
much talk about party position or letter from
the party, I think it is actually being
misunderstood.
“For us, the position of the party has to go
through certain laws, certain process; the party
caucus in the House would be involved, we
believe that the caucus here in the House
should be aware of the position of the party.
“As far as we are concerned, the party did not
approach anybody or zonal caucuses to say
these are the names selected from the party.
We are not aware of that.
“Two, we also know that for a party to take a
position, to be regarded as the party position,
it has to go to the National Working
Committee. The NWC must have met and
agreed on the position, but it appears some
members of the working committee are not
even aware of this position.
“Again, even if the NWC agrees to it, it has to
be ratified by the NEC and the speaker and
deputy speaker are also members of NEC.
There has never been any time that this issue
was brought up.
“But, in any case, the first NEC meeting that
was held, this matter was not brought up. So,
that means clearly it is not the party’s position.
The position of the House is that there is
nothing like party position. We won’t accept the
said letter as a letter from the party.” Source: www.punchng.com/news/nassembly-crisis-tambuwal-peace-moves-crumble/ |
