Call Dogara To Order, Gbajabiamila Begs PMB

Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila and members of his group in the House of Representatives have implored President Muhammadu Buhari call the Speaker, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, and members of his group to order.

According to them, Dogara and his supporters were selling out the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) by conniving with members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to cause division in order to perfect their next plan of defecting to the opposition party.

The splinter group in the House made the appeal when Gbajabiamila led 30 of its members drawn from across geopolitical zones to meet with the president and his deputy, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, on Wednesday night.

Gbajabiamila who spoke to journalists after the meeting held at the First Lady's conference room of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, also made available a document containing their grouses which they tendered to the president.

They told Buhari that his intervention had become necessary to save the party's hard earned integrity, which was already at stake.

They acknowledged the fact that the president and APC state governors stood firmly behind the party by consistently enjoining the House to adhere to the party's position.

Gbajabiamila and his group stated: "The 39 APC members in the House continue to collude with the PDP to flagrantly disobey Mr. President, the governors and the party, with a view to bringing the party and government to ridicule before Nigerians.

"The conduct of the 39 APC members colluding with the PDP is tantamount to affront, ultimately targeted at polarising our party so as to give room for many of them to defect to the PDP.

"It is therefore imperative for Mr. President to take a stand and save the integrity of the party by cautioning the 39 members, which include the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker, to respect, honour and obey our party leaders and their directives."

The group appealed to the president to ask Dogara and his supporters to come back to the APC stable in the House by following the party's directive on the other four principal officers nominated by the APC leadership.

They said, "We strongly appeal to you to direct the Speaker to return to our fold and be a truly elected Speaker on APC platform. He should be directed to announce the other four party principal officers' positions as directed by the party as it has always been the convention.

"We sincerely appreciate Mr. President for the audience, trusting in his ability to successfully mediate so as to save our great party, the APC, from further embarrassment."

Lamenting that the opposition PDP, in league with the 39 APC members, had continued to treat the APC leadership with disdain, the Gbajabiamila group expressed worry about what would eventually become the reward of the 174 of them who had remained loyal and faithful to the party.

They told the president that their effort to extend an olive branch by openly congratulating Dogara and his deputy had been to no avail.

On the insistence by Dogara group that respecting the party's wishes in selecting other principal officers would be against the principle of federal character, the Gbajabiamila group noted that the said principle does not apply to the National Assembly.

They stated: "It should be noted that the federal character principle as embedded in the 1999 Constitution (as amended) is not justiciable and of no legal consequence. Its provision in S.14 of the Constitution is only applicable to appointments in federal ministries and agencies.

"The House of Representatives is not an agency of the federal government and the principal officers' positions are elective and not by appointment. If federal character is applicable to the National Assembly, then both the Senate President and the Speaker cannot come from the North; one of them should have been advised to step down."

Speaking to journalists later on, Gbajabiamila said the meeting with the president was quite successful, as issues concerning the crisis in the House were addressed.

He insisted that the APC and its caucus in the House would emerge from the crisis bigger, stronger and better for it, adding that the meeting with the president was for the APC caucus in the House.

But when reminded that the Speaker could not have been absent from the meeting if it was for APC caucus, Gbajabiamila said Dogara may have been engaged by other commitments.

"The Speaker probably has other engagements. There are a few members of the caucus that are not here. We could not get everybody here. This is a representation of the caucus. When we are talking about the caucus, we are talking about 210 members. You did not find all the members here. This is a representation of the 210 members," he said.

On why all those who attended the meeting were members of his camp, Gbajabiamila explained that "it is not about me and we need to get that clear. Yes, they voted for me but the idea is that they supported the party. That is who we are and there is nothing more to be said about that. It is not about any individual."