Ninth NASS leadership: No C’ttee Chairmanship for opposition – Oshiomhole

CHAIRMAN of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Adams Oshiomhole
last night said that the party will not share Committee
Chairmanship with the opposition party in the ninth National
Assembly.

This is as Oshiomhole has presented the current Majority Leader
of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila as the adopted candidate of the
party for the speakership position.

Hon. Abdulmumini Jibrin Gbajabiamila Campaign Director confirmed
to newsmen that he (Gbajabiamila) was presented to President
Buhari.

But a source at the meeting said, President Buhari declined to
make comment on Gbajabiamila.

According to the source, Hon. Ahmed Wase (APC, Plateau) stood up
after the presentation of Gbajabiamila to express surprise, that
after meeting Mr. President to step down from the position of the
speaker and take over as deputy speaker, his name was not mentioned
at the dinner for the position.

The Special Adviser to the President for Media and Publicity,
Femi Adesina, told State House Correspondents that Buhari called
for unity among party members.

Adesina said: “90-95 percent of them are in unison, seem to
agree on the position of the party..unanimity ran through the
meeting. We cannot speak for five percent. The President urged them
to maintain the unity referring to what transpired in 2015…if there
is disunity in their ranks, then anything can happen.
He urged them to maintain the unity and stand by the position of
the party.”

The APC Chairman while making his remarks at the dinner hosted
by President Muhammadu Buhari for House of Representatives
members-elect at the Old Banquet Hall, Presidential Villa,
Abuja.

He said that the APC has about 223 members-elect out of the 360
House members and that 67 were re-elected for the ninth assembly,
adding that there was no room for coalition with the opposition as
the ruling APC has two-third to carryout any legislative business
including amendment of the constitution.

According to him “Mr President on your behalf we have had a
meeting, the NWC with the new members of the House of
Representative elect who are yet to be sworn in and later they were
joined by the re-elected members. And so we had an APC caucus of
the house of representative which was held some weeks ago at Yardua
center.

“Your excellency, I found that meeting very revealing just
listeninga to the quality of intervention made by new members yet
to be inaugurated.

“I am convinced sir, Nigerians have mDe a very wise choice in
electing the members in the house of representatives. They
demonstrated deep knowledge of the challenges that we face. They
acknowledged the need to work together as a party.

“I think they recog ise that Nigeria realise that we have gone
through some avoidable difficulties in managing your first term
because we have what I can easily describe as a hostile leadership
of the national assembly and there is no better evidence to this
tha. The fact that people elected o. The platform of our party even
in the face of pronouncements of the supreme Court that it is
parties that win elections not ca didayes.

“They were elected on the basis of our platform, they were
beneficiaries of the party and when it suits them they decamped and
turned us to a mi ority a d created tension in the sustem, xecli ex
to approve or even consider nominees fro.

“His excellency for various positions, delayed budget needlessly
in order to make I. Plementation difficult and created all sorts of
obstacles that you will think that the National Assembly was
dominated by members of the opposition yet they were APC
members.

“For me sir, what I have found in life there is nothing wrong
once you admit that you are human, kistakes are expected but it ca.
Only become a problem if we repeat mistakes twise.

“From the lessons we have learnt fro. What happened in 2015 we
are determined that in 2019 we’d not repeat those mistakes. We draw
the apropriate lessons from those mistakes and we move on. If you
are elected, it means you are tested and trusted.

“Out of 223 APC elected members, about 67 were re-elected, the
rest are new members.

“In other climes, you don’t go into coalition when you are in
the majority, you do so when you don’t have the numbers. We have
the numbers, out of 306, Nigerians elected 223 APC members because
they don’t want Mr. president to face the trauma of 2015.

“Most of those who decamped were rejected and even those who led
it were uprooted. We cannot as a party which has a comfortable
majority, entrust critical committees in the hands of the PDP or
opposition.

“If Nigerians wanted them, they could have voted them. In the
days of PDP, every committee were chaired by PDP members.

Describing the present leadership of the National Assembly as
selfish, greedy, he said, “We do not need to do business with the
devil for us to survive in the ninth Assembly.

“In African family, we sit down in a closed door to address
issues, the good news is that there is a role for everyone.

“Neither mr president nor the party expects the National
Assembly to be rubber stamps, we don’t have rubbers…But we will not
fight in Wuse market.

“Both the re-elected and new members are entitled to heading
committees

“We have asked our people not to share what belongs to us with
other party members.

“I don’t have apologies against forces of retrogression.”