President Muhammadu Buhari late on Wednesday night met with some members of the House of Representatives led by Femi Gbajabiamilla. Contrary to impressions gathered earlier in the day, the meeting was not attended by Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara
The faceoff between the contending groups in the National Assembly seems far from over as this group of lawmakers is insisting on adherence to the party’s position
30 lawmakers drawn from the 6 geopolitical zones of the country make up the delegation and the meeting is seemingly brokered by Senator Abu Ibrahim, the Senator representing President Buhari’s constituency in the Upper chambers of the National Assembly
The impression being given is that the meeting is for the party caucus of the All Progessives Congress in the House but it became clear that the group is made up of lawmakers loyal to Femi Gbajabiamilla
The President came into the First Lady’s Banquet Hall venue of the meeting at about 9.50pm and obviously newsmen had to leave as the meeting went into closed door session which lasted about an hour. It is difficult to conclude whether a consensus was reached as Mr. Gbajabiamila was insisting that the party’s position must be enforced in the leadership of the House of Representatives.
“We all came on the platform of a party, not me nor the person on my left nor on my right came as independent candidate so the wish of the party should stand…We equally know that the President is a party man who believes in the ideals and philosophy of the party”
On why Speaker Dogara was not present at the meeting, Mr. Gbajabiamila said the Speaker may be busy with other engagements.
“This is just a representation of the caucus. If we are talking about the caucus, we should be talking about 210 persons but you can’t find that number here. It is simply a representation of the caucus” He said.
It is still not clear what this meeting will achieve unless these lawmakers are expecting an outright reversal of the appointments of Principal Officers that have been announced.
But beyond this the President is treading dangerously by meeting with members offended by the happenings in the National Assembly as it is very easy to go from this point to a conclusion that he has sympathy for the aggrieved lawmakers. Or will he meet with the other camp soon?
