The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, John Oyegun, has on Wednesday, December 7, finally mended fences with the embattled Senate President, Bukola Saraki.
The meeting which was led by the party’s Chairman, John Oyegun, however, failed to resolve all the contending issues.
This is coming, after the proactive step taken by the leadership of the party, to resolve the lingering crisis, ended in deadlock.
Recall, that the frosty relationship between the party leadership and its caucus in the Senate, arose from the insistence by the leadership of the APC, that its preferred candidates, Senator Ahmed Lawal, and George Akume, should be made Senate President, and Deputy Senate President, respectively.
However, Saraki defied the dictates of the party, and with the support of Senators of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and several others on the platform of the APC, emerged as the President of the Senate, while Senator Ike Ekweremadu of the PDP, became his Deputy.
The situation was made worse, when other principal offices in the Senate were handed down to Senators other than those penciled down by the party.
Emerging from the meeting on Wednesday, the National Chairman of the APC, said although there were still some glitches, both sides had accepted to make progress in the interest of peace.
“As far as the party is concerned, we commended the Senate, and the entire National Assembly, for the way they have worked so far with the Executive.
“We are determined, and we concluded that we must work closely together to address some of the glitches that still exist in the relationship between the National Assembly and the Executive.
“We want to assure the general public, that they will see results that will lift their spirit in the next few weeks, and months to follow. It means that the end is in sight.
“We have started the process, but there are issues to be resolved, and there is no question at all that we are a family, and when things have gone wrong, we accept that things have gone wrong, and we are determined to right those wrongs,” he said.
In his remarks, Saraki said that the parties accepted to move forward, and to work together, to ensure that things were done in the right way.
“First of all, formally, we both bared our minds.
“We told ourselves hard truths, but at the end of the day, we accepted that certain things were not done properly, but we accepted to move forward, work closely with the party for the interest of building the party, because of Nigerians that believe in our party.
“We need to work closely together, and we are hopeful that a new chapter is being opened today, and we are committed to the hopes and aspirations we gave Nigerians, who came out to vote a year and a half ago,” he said.
On the Senate President’s delegation, were the Senate Majority Leader, Senator Ali Ndume; Deputy Senate Leader, Bala Ibn-Na’Allah; and Chief Whip, Olusola Adeyeye; while Oyegun led a team of National Working Committee, NWC, members.
While speaking at the brief opening ceremony, Oyegun lamented that the frosty relationship between the Presidency, the party, and the National Assembly leadership, which had gone on since the inception of the APC-led administration, had affected the smooth running of government.
He said that time had come to end the divide, and to seek a harmonious working relationship between the party, the Executive, and APC members in the Legislative arm of government, to enable the party to deliver good governance to Nigerians.
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