By Joshua Egbodo
Abuja
Contrary to popular perception that the Femi Gbajabiamila’s group may have endorsed the sharing formula initiated by Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, in the principal offices of the House of Representatives, the group yesterday said it is still holding to the sharing plan as contained in its party’s letter to the Speaker.
Members of the camp had at a media briefing, Saturday said the leadership crisis was over, as Ado Doguwa, Pally Iriase, Buba Jibril and Chika Okafor has accepted the positions of Majority Leader, Chief Whip, Deputy Leader, and Deputy Chief Whip respectively, as proposed by Dogara in his letter to the All Progressives Congress (APC) “in the interest of peace.”
However, in its reaction yesterday, the APC loyalists, which is still rooting to see Gbajabiamila as Majority Leader of the House, did not only accuse Dogara and his supporters of forming “unholy alliance” with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with the intent to undermine the agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari, but also to deploy members to strategic positions “to indirectly dictate the pace and activities of the National Assembly to the detriment of our party’s goals and objectives”.
Led at a press briefing yesterday by its spokesman, Hon. Nasir Zangon Daura, the group lamented that with a paltry eight votes that Dogara defeated Gbajabiamila with, it was expected that the Speaker formed a united House, and it’s resistance was to prevent the opposition PDP, which by the 2015 general elections ought to have gone into oblivion, from hijacking the federal legislature.
“This is all about preventing the PDP from hijacking the National Assembly from our party and imposing its corrupted will on President Muhammadu Buhari’s Agenda for change. We hereby assure all those that voted for the APC, that we will never betray the trust you reposed in us as your elected Representatives in the House, due to our selfish interest.
“We are also cognisant that in politics there are always the subversive activities and antics of 5th columnist in any political movement to content with. We are also aware that this unholy alliance is a bid to truncate President Muhammadu Buhari’s agenda, which include his anti-corruption stance by using the National Assembly to, at the very minimum, slow it down if they cannot stop this Presidential initiative dead cold.
“To have a genuine agreement that is not tainted by the PDP, the Dogara group will have to first of all cut off the umbilical cord between them and the PDP and secondly engage in candid reconciliatory discussions with our group as a whole through our approved members under the leadership of Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila,” Daura submitted.