By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
Amidst the bickering over the juicy positions in the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Principal Officers of the National Assembly (NASS) were guests of President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Wednesday.
Speaking with the State House Correspondents after the meeting with President Buhari, Senate President Senator Ahmed Lawan said the leadership of NASS was at the seat of government on the invitation of the leader of APC.
“This is not what we’re used to in the legislature. But now that we are confronted with this question of what we discussed with Mr. President, our leader of the party, the All Progressives Congress in the country, and beyond, invited the principal officers of the APC to hold today’s meeting with us”.
“Mr. President, emphasized the need for us, in the APC to be united, always act as a family, ensure that we remain focused. We have the leadership of Nigeria today at the national level. And of course, we have many states, about 22 states, under the leadership of the APC governors.
“We have 22 states and then control the federal government that requires that APC as a political party remains very focus, energetic, and purposeful, as it has always been, and ensure that we maintain the trajectory of development for our country”.
“Because that is trust Nigerians gave us in 2015 and renewed that, in 2019. Mr. President also emphasized the need for us to ensure that we have a successful convention on the 26th of this month March”.
“This convention, by way of emphasis is a very important convention for us, in APC, and by the grace of God, through our processes and procedures, at different levels of the party, the convention would be a very successful one, very peaceful one.
“We hope that would have achieved so much consensus in selecting and electing the officers for this party so that when we go into the convention, most of the officers should be for affirmation or confirmation”.
“Finally, I want to say that this meeting with Mr. President has given us more energy. We believe that there is a father, at least in our party, there is a president who will ensure that once there disagreements he is able to call everybody to order and ensure that the family continues to remain united and that is what we have been able to achieve over the years”, Lawan stated.
Also speaking on their presence in the Villa, Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila said: “I have very little to add to what the Senate president has said. Except that this meeting was a productive one”.
“As many of you are aware of the President in the last couple of days his been having meetings with stakeholders towards the convention that is coming up on Saturday. And the whole idea is to encourage all stakeholders to unite, have a common front, and have a peaceful rancour free and successful convention”.
“That’s what that meeting was about the long and short of it, and to make sure everybody’s on the same page, in terms of being united in terms of candidates. And we all know that in conventions such as this, where you have almost 5000, delegates, and many more. You have to be well organized. You have to be freed up to be fair to everybody. And that’s what he charged obviously, like any leader would”.
