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| Chief Ayo Akande |
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress in Lagos State, Chief Ayo Akande, on Tuesday, said it would be difficult for the National Leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to trust the other leaders of the party given the turn of events in the sharing of principal offices in the National Assembly.
Akande, in a statement, said the party leaders had been unfair to Tinubu.
He noted that the disrespect for the party’s position in the sharing of the National Assembly’s principal offices “by a cabal in the leadership of the party is a betrayal of the trust that Tinubu reposed in the party.”
The party chieftain said, “You can imagine the response of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, to the crisis in the National Assembly. Saraki said his ‘hands are tied’ and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogora, said what was going on in the House ‘is politics.’ Must everything that is indecent be politics? This is unfair to the national leader of the party, Asiwaju Tinubu.”
The ruling APC has been embroiled in crisis since the inauguration of the National Assembly on June 9.
The crisis further deepened when Saraki and Dogara spurned the directive of the party on the sharing of other principal offices in the two chambers. Saraki and Dogara defied the APC’s directive to emerge senate president and speaker respectively.
The party had preferred Senator Ahmad Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila to lead the Senate and the House of Representatives, respectively.
Many party leaders, including President Muhammadu Buhari, have also condemned the crisis, which led to the emergence of Ike Ekweremadu of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party as the deputy senate president.
Akande said the actions of “most leaders of the party and the nine dissidents from the Peoples Democratic Party on the crisis rocking the APC were clear demonstration of disloyalty to the party and its national leader.”
He said, “What is going on in the party is not only an affront to Tinubu but also a cheat on the entire membership of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, who fought for the success of the APC during the last general election with everything they had.
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“The simple arithmetic is that the vice-president and speaker is equal to the president. If the Presidency went to the defunct Congress for Progressive Change, both the vice-president and the speaker positions should go to the former ACN. The senate president could come from the defunt All Nigeria Peoples Party. Anything short of that is cheating on the ACN.”
The APC was formed through the merger of the defunct ACN, CPC, ANPP and a faction of the All Progressive Grand Alliance.
Akande, however, advised the South-West politicians of the former ACN to be patient. He asked Buhari to initiate a roundtable conference of all the affiliates in the APC for a lasting solution to the ongoing crisis in the party. He said the President could not afford to be indifferent to the crisis.
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