Vice President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday held a closed-door meeting with the leadership of the National Assembly and some state governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) over some thorny national issues causing disaffection in the ruling party.
The two-hour parley, held at the Osinbajo’s office, ended in a deadlock.
It commenced shortly before President Muhammadu Buhari departed for an official trip to Morocco and was attended by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal;
the Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, represented the National Assembly while Governors Ibukunle Amosun (Ogun); Rochas Okorocha (Imo); Jubrilla Bindow (Adamawa); Abubakar Bello (Niger) and Abdulaziz Yari (Zamfara) represented the APC governors.
The governors, who emerged from the meeting with not-so-cheerful mien, declined to speak to the press, with Okorocha saying that “they said I should not talk.”
However, before entering their separate cars at the forecourt of the Aso Rock Villa, Saraki and Dogara met again informally with the governors briefly and they all departed amid laughter.
Before leaving, Saraki, who was asked by journalists what transpired at the meeting, initially told them to rather wait to hear from the Vice President’s office.
But when pestered on why the meeting with Osinbajo appeared to have been a stormy session, Saraki said that “there’s nothing like a stormy session.”
He added that the meeting centred on how to move Nigeria forward by ensuring more inclusiveness and collaboration between the Executive and the Legislature.
His words: “I’m sure the Vice President will issue a statement; but it’s nothing of great alarm. It’s all for good governance, inclusion and collaboration with all arms (of government). The states are here, National Assembly executives just came up with ideas on how to make things work even better, that’s all.”
The ruling APC has been contending with differences among its top members following what many of them have narrowed down to the President’s reluctance to carry them along in major decisions.
This non-consultation has been linked to disaffection with federal appointments made by the President, including ministers, heads of parastatals and recently, ambassadors-designate, which some APC governors rejected.
Also, the APC National Leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has not hidden his disgust with the party’s National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, whose resignation he had demanded following the crisis that resulted from party primaries in Ondo State.
The Senate’s rejection of the request for an approval of a $29.9 billion foreign loan sought by President Buhari is also believed to have featured in the meeting.
The lawmakers’ action has equally been traced to inadequate consultations by the Presidency over such major issues.
The lawmakers also refused to approve the Presidency’s Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) on which the 2017 National Budget is predicated, citing similar reasons.
Although there were speculations that Osinbajo discussed the loan request and MTEF with Saraki and Dogara during the meeting, the absence of the government’s Economic Team at the parley, raised posers over the claims
