Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and House of Representatives Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, are walking a tight rope as state All Progressives Congress (APC) chairmen have insisted on the party’s supremacy and resolved to stand by its list of principal officers.
They made the resolution at a meeting in Abuja on Thursday, June 25 and Friday, June 26.
The chairmen were scheduled to brief the press after the meeting but it was learnt that they called it off at the last minute because they did not want to wash their dirty clothes in public.
They issued a statement restating the position of the APC leadership on the need to maintain party supremacy.
Last week, the APC National Working Committee (NWC) forwarded to Saraki and Dogara a list of names they want to occupy principal offices in the National Assembly (NASS).
Both men ignored the list.
The state chairmen expressed displeasure with the development in the NASS, “especially the Lower Chamber’’ and urged the APC leadership “to put in place, proper machinery to checkmate further occurrences.”
They stressed that “as state party chairmen and direct grassroots leaders, we are all concerned about the development and therefore re-affirm our believe and loyalty to our party, the APC, its supremacy as contained in the party’s constitution and the decision of its leadership.”
They appealed to APC national leaders to “use the long break [of the NASS] to resolve the matter so that the much needed change will be seen and enjoyed by everybody.”
APC governors had also met in Abuja on Tuesday, June 23 and delegated eight of them to relay their position on the NASS crisis to the party’s National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun.
They reportedly told Oyegun that they are solidly behind him and fully support the leadership on the supremacy of the party.
“The governors came to tell [him] not to shift ground on this issue of party supremacy. They told him that they will go the whole hog with him on the issue,” said a source in the APC.
He added that governors’ visit coincided with the writing of the letters to Saraki and Dogara by the NWC led by Oyegun.
With the positions of APC governors and state chairmen, Saraki and Dogara may lose out if the matter goes to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party as some people have demanded.
Despite the rift, APC National Vice Chairman (South South), Hiliird Itah, is optimistic that the party will not disintegrate.
He insisted at the inauguration of the South South APC Support Group that the party will come out of it stronger, even though some members are not comfortable with the current happenings.
Said Itah: “The situation at the National Assembly has given a lot of members of the APC some sleepless nights. What is going on in the National Assembly is mere politics. It is nothing other than politics.
“Those who believe that this is the beginning of the end of the APC have a very long time to wait. For dispensations after dispensations, the APC will be here to give good governance to the people of Nigeria.
“The truth is that most of us are in politics because of enlightened self-interest. For some, the interest might not be so enlightened and so when you come into politics, one of the fundamental ingredients of politics is contest.
“And so there are offices to be contested for in the National Assembly and you must have these kinds of situations if a political party has internal democracy as one of the leading principles in its conduct of affairs.
“Now the difference between us and the dying PDP is that leadership has never been given to the people, it has always been packaged and given to them. So, Nigerians have been accustomed to this for the past 16 years.
“What is happening today is a departure from that culture and so it seems to us as if anything is amiss. In other climes what is happening in the National Assembly is what naturally happens when people contest for offices.”
Itah appealed to journalists “not make a mountain out of a mole hill” because “the APC is not going to unravel, the APC is going to be solid decades from now.”
He recalled that when some parties were about to merge into the APC, the position of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was that of unbelief.
“When we went into election and we had the unprecedented support of the people, their position was that of hate. Today, their position is that of anger.
“They are reacting out of anger. So some of us who are discerning enough to know this can only in the confines of our room laugh at them, because they took Nigerians for granted for 16 years, and they think by being angry they will take back power.”
Itah promised that President Muhammadu Buhari “will deliver, he is going to deliver on the mandate given to him. Now some have accused [him] of being slow, I was out of the country and saw a caricature of our president as ‘baba go slow’.
“If by not saying anything and not doing anything, and fuel has returned to fuel stations, I like this baba go slow. If by not saying or doing anything and people have returned looted funds, I love him.
“So when he finally says things, I wonder what is going to happen in the country.
“I have not come here to politick but having listened to the chairman of the South South chapter of the APC when he spoke about Bayelsa, I know that the PDP has no business in Akwa Ibom and Rivers States.
“But I can only wait like our compatriots from Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and Rivers States. Day by day I wait until the day those mandates freely given to the people will be retrieved from the hawks and vultures of our political process.
“Not only are we going to have APC government in Bayelsa, we are going to have APC governments in Rivers and Akwa Ibom States.
“One of our own was former President Goodluck Jonathan but I dare to say that he was not the best put forward for the country. He was indeed a disgrace to us.
“But let me also say that in taking his stance for Nigeria and against one of our own, we projected a picture of absolute and sublime patriotism.
“Every member of the South South APC is an unquantifiable, indescribable patriot of Nigeria for the emotions and sentiments and only looking for the progress of Nigeria.”
