APC makes U-turn on Saraki

The All Progressives Congress (APC) says the emergence of Dr. Bukola Saraki as Senate President was a reality it must live with.

APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, stated this in Abuja yesterday while addressing State House correspondents.

Oyegun concurred that Saraki had been duly elected Senate president by his colleagues in the upper chamber.

Asked if the party will accept Saraki as Senate president, Oyegun said: “Of course, he (Saraki) has been duly elected by his colleagues. We have a reality and we must live with it.”

He disagreed with those touting the elections of the new National Assembly leaders as the beginning of the end of the APC.

Oyegun noted that the party had overcome similar challenges in the past and would surmount the current one.

He described the current scenario in the party as a family affair which, he stressed, was being sorted out and put in proper perspective.

“We have faced greater challenges before, and this too shall pass away... It is not the first or second time we have passed through and we came out strong. This may not even be the last time, we will come out every time stronger and more determined,” he said.

On what the party’s next step would be, Oyegun said: “There is no next step. What has happened is within the APC family and we are sorting it out within the family. People say they are going to court which is their right, but as a party, we are looking at everything and we are coming out strong.”

Asked to comment on Saraki’s aborted visit to the APC secretariat on Thursday, Oyegun said: “Nothing went wrong. There were a lot of consultations and you can’t be in two places at the same time, and so, it was not comfortable for us. But we have been talking. We don’t want to make a song and dance of it. Everything is being put in proper perspective.”