President Muhammadu Buhari last night held a closed-door meeting with the National Assembly leaders in Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Senate President Bukola Saraki and House Speaker Yakubu Dogara led the National Assembly leadership to the meeting which started at about 9:15pm. Conspicuously absent from the parley was Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu giving rise to rumblings that it was an intra-All Progressives Congress (APC) affair.
Other National Assembly leaders in attendance included Senate Majority Leader Ali Ndume; Minority Whip Phillip Aduda; Deputy Majority Leader Bala Ibn Na’Allah and Minority Leader Godswill Akpabio, as well as Deputy House Speaker Yusuf Lasun and House Majority Leader Femi Gbajabiamila.
Other Executive functionaries were, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Babachir David Lawal.
Leadership reported that the meeting was a continuatin of efforts to unite the Presidency and National Assembly leadership to thaw their frosty relationship since the inauguration of the 8th National Assembly in June this year.
The meeting was said to have been facilitated by the Senator Ita Enang, Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (SSA Senate), and Hon. Suleiman Kawu, SSA (House of Representatives) were reported to have arranged the parley.
It is to create the needed cordial relationship between the executive and legislature after the bad blood that had been running between them since the appointment of the NASS principal officers, particularly in the Senate.
Saraki would be meeting with Buhari in Aso Rock for the second time after his controversial emergence in June, the first being on October 1 during the Independence Day celebration.
The House of Representatives, following a motion last week, mandated Dogara to find ways of intervening in the lingering dispute between the Senate and the Presidency.