APC Leaders In Confusion Over Saraki and His Gang

The All Progressives Congress is undecided on how to handle the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Reps, Rt. Hon. Yakuubu Dogara, for disregarding its directive on the choice of principal officers of the National Assembly.

It was learnt on Friday that the party’s National Working Committee, NWC, was undecided on whether or not Saraki and Dogara should be punished for their gross insubordination.

It was learnt that while some members believed that the party should handle the issue with care; others insisted that the Senate President and the Speaker should be punished immediately.

The division among the NWC members had prevented the committee from taking a definite decision on the alleged anti-party activities by the Senate President and the Speaker.

Saraki and Dogara, had on June 9 defied the directive of the party by contesting the senate presidency and the speakership. APC leaders are really angry because PDP got the senate deputy presidency.

Saraki and his loyalists, among the APC senators, had boycotted the peace meeting the party had with its senators on June 9.

Saraki emerged as senate president unopposed when the meeting was to take place at the ICC in Abuja.

Saraki again refused to announce the party’s candidates for the upper chamber’s principal positions.

The APC, had in a letter to Saraki on Wednesday, named Lawan as its choice for the Majority Leader; Prof. Sola Adeyeye as the Chief Whip; George Akume as Deputy Majority Leader; and Abu Ibrahim as Deputy Chief Whip.

The party also wrote Dogara and named a former Minority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila as the Majority Leader; Ado Doguwa as the Deputy House Leader; M.T. Monguno as the Chief Whip and Pally Iriase as the Deputy Chief Whip.

Saraki read letters from zonal caucuses of the APC on Thursday and choose those the party did not want.

In the House of Representatives, the refusal of Dogara to read the party’s letter threw the lower chamber into commotion.

The APC, in a statement on Thursday by its Secretary Mai Mala Buni, insisted on its position and rejected the principal officers announced by Saraki.

Investigations showed that those who advocated a soft approach were of the view that if the issue was not handled with care, the PDP would cash in on the crisis and woo Saraki, Dogara and other APC senators.

But it was learnt that those calling for a punitive measure insisted that the party would set a bad precedent, if Saraki and his group were not punished.

“What I can tell you is that the party will meet within the next few days and make its position on all these issues known,” a source told Punch in Abuja.