Osinbajo, Oyegun, APC govs fail to unite members

As the Eighth National Assembly is inaugurated tuesday, the odds are in favour of former Kwara State Governor Senator Bukola Saraki to clinch Senate presidency in a contest that is certain to alter the fortunes of the APC.

This is despite spirited attempts made monday by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Chief John Oyegun, and governors elected on the platform of APC to unite its members-elect behind Senator Ahmed Lawan for the Senate presidency and Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila for the post of speaker in the House of Representatives.

However, Saraki looks set to coast to victory following the decision last night of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to back him. PDP also adopted Hon. Yakubu Dogara, Gbajabiamila's main rival for the speakership, making the contest in the House too close to call.

An impasse over the leadership tussle in the federal legislature snowballed when APC conducted a straw poll on Saturday that threw up Lawan and Gbajabiamila as its choice for the posts of Senate president and Speaker, respectively.

But their emergence was rejected by Saraki, Dogara, and their supporters, who cried foul over APC's attempt to foist its preferred candidates for the coveted posts in the National Assembly.

The situation has been made more precarious for APC with PDP's emergence as the spoiler that may determine the outcome of the contest in both chambers of the National Assembly.

But in order to resolve the impasse that had ensued, the party and its governors made attempts to unite its members-elect behind its candidates for both posts.

Osinbajo, who yesterday was scheduled to hold a reconciliatory meeting with APC members-elect, at the last minute chose to stay away from the meeting to starve off the boycott of the meeting by Saraki, Dogara and their supporters.

Apparently, the veepee got wind of a plan to boycott the meeting by the groups loyal to both Saraki and Dogara, and decided to change plans to forestall an embarrassing situation.

Instead, it was the National Chairman, Chief John Oyegun who represented Osinbajo at the meeting, which held at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.

The meeting, though boycotted by most of the lawmakers, had about 60 members-elect in attendance.

Oyegun repeated the party's appeal to APC lawmakers to toe the party's line by voting for Lawan and Gbajabiamila for Senate president and speaker, respectively.

He urged the lawmakers to allow the party and the national interest override personal interests. Shortly after Oyegun addressed the lawmakers, they left the venue in a buoyant mood at about 7 pm after it became obvious that Osinbajo was not going to make it to the meeting.

The absence of several APC members-elect was said to have been precipitated by a text message from Dogara informing all legislators loyal to him not to attend the meeting, as there were plans to arrest and detain them in order to shut them out until after the election.

The message read: "Information reaching us indicates that this purported meeting is a ploy to arrest and detain members until after tomorrow's election. Members should therefore disregard the invitation."

Speaking to reporters, a member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Parry Iriase, representing Owan Federal constituency of Edo State and supporter of Gbajabiamila, said that they had to leave because they still had a lot of things to tidy up before the inauguration of the House monday.

Iriase said the legislators had already met and conducted the straw poll, adding that the aim of the meeting was to ensure that members of APC went into the Assembly united.

"We have met at various levels and we have been meeting. The essence of this meeting was for the vice-president to address all the lawmakers, including those who are not happy with the straw poll.

"For those of us in the House of Representatives, we believe that out of the about 209 elected APC members, we have over 70 per cent of them on our side and we are confident that when we get to the house, we will muster enough members to get the position of speaker."

Asked whether they will still meet with the vice-president, he said: "We were told that the vice-president was coming to address us, but we have waited and he is not here. We were told he is airborne and that he will come. But we have other things we need to iron out before tomorrow, so had to leave.

"Nigerians should expect a united APC at the end of tomorrow because we are a family and we believe that this is democracy in action. We are confident that things will work out well," he said.

Similarly, former Yobe State Governor, Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim said: "I don't even know what is happening. We were told that the vice-president was coming to address us, but we have not seen him."

Prior to the evening meeting with Oyegun at the International Conference Centre, Osinbajo was seen driving into APC's national secretariat at about 4.50 pm to consult with Oyegun.

A party source said the veepee's meeting with Oyegun was a prelude the meeting held with the party's members-elect later in the evening.

Earlier, Oyegun had addressed journalists in his office where he appealed to the National Assembly members elected on the platform of the APC to respect the decisions of the party last Saturday over the choice of the leadership of the two chambers.

"I appeal to the party members at the National Assembly to please respect the views of the party and the decisions that they themselves took in selecting the persons they chose as presiding officers of the two chambers of the National Assembly: at the House level, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila and in the Senate, Senator Ahmed Lawan.

"I want to make it clear that all the party did was to provide the platform for only the APC elected members to state their preferences for the key offices. This they have freely done by themselves in the presence of the party leadership, almost the entire NWC.

"But it seems some of the aspirants are not satisfied with the decisions they took. For me, I make an appeal that no individual interest should be allowed to override the overall interest of the members. I appeal that the party's methods of doing things should be respected.

"We cannot impose anybody on you. All we did was just to provide a platform for them to do what they did. I appeal to them that the choice made in selecting their leaders should stand and I appeal to them to let peace reign. We are change agent. Therefore, this change should start with the conduct of the members themselves," he said.

Oyegun stressed that as part of the party's efforts to ensure amity among the members, Osibanjo would shortly address them in an hour''s time, but this did not happen.

He assured them that what was happening in the party was "one of the challenges we have faced and the APC had survived them all and this too shall come to pass".

After the botched meeting that Osinbajo failed to attend, the horse-trading shifted to the governors of the APC, who met at an undisclosed location to arrive at a resolution of the impasse that had ensued.

The governors were initially scheduled to meet at the Imo State Governor's Lodge in Asokoro, Abuja, but changed the venue when they discovered that journalists were going to lay siege on the original venue.

Sources privy to their meeting, however, informed THISDAY that they were also unable to resolve the crisis that had torn its members-elect apart and resolved to go to the National Assembly in the hope that they could swing the elections to favour Lawan and Gbajabiamila.

However, it was learnt that Saraki at press time was not prepared to step down. Instead, THISDAY gathered that he spent the whole of yesterday lobbying PDP Senators-elect for their votes from an undisclosed location.

In his bid to achieve victory, it was learnt that Saraki had reached out to Senator Ike Ekeremadu with the intention of offering the post of Deputy Senate President to the PDP.

His efforts, THISDAY learnt, eventually yielded fruit, when a meeting of the PDP NWC, senators-elect of the opposition party and former Senate President David Mark, was held at his Apo residence at 10 pm monday.

Ostensibly, the meeting was meant to agree on a position that the PDP caucus would take on who to support for Senate presidency and speakership in the House.

At the end of the meeting, which stretched into the wee hours of this morning, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP Olisa Metuh, announced that the party had adopted Saraki and Dogara, and urged PDP members-elect to vote in accordance with the decision of the party.