Gbajabiamila: APC Not Involved in Saraki’s Travails
Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has dissociated the ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC), from the Senate President, Bukola Saraki’s legal travails at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).
Gbajabiamila made the disclosure yesterday while fielding, questions from State House Correspondents in Abuja after a closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.
Asked to comment on the report that the senate president had been offered the option of toeing the party line by dropping certain members of the Senate leadership to accommodate the candidates of the party, the House Leader said: “I can’t comment and promote things that are unsubstantiated. You know the problem is a constitutional, legal problem and I don’t know owe treat constitutional legal problem politically. If that be the case, perhaps I may not know.”
On whether the crises rocking the National Assembly have finally been resolved, Gbajabiamila said: “Everything that has a beginning, has an end. I don’t think and I don’t know if there is any leadership crisis in the National Assembly. I’m not sure at what you’re alluding to; I’m not in the Senate. But the little I understand is that there is an issue involved with the senate president. That has nothing to do with the APC. That has to do with the issue of law and I’m sure the senate president is being surely represented and he will have his day in court. If the matter comes up, I don’t think it’s an APC issue; it’s not an APC issue at all. There is no crisis, not in the House.”
He also said the leadership of the House was prepared to deal with whatever would be the fallout of the constitution of committees and appointment of chairmen and and their deputies. He pointed out that the leadership was meticulous in committees composition and would ensure justice and fairness.
The house leader also said the law makers were on the same page with the president on his administration’s zero budget policy saying: “Absolutely, we understand the logic. Unlike the envelope budget system, which had issues under the best circumstances. Zero budget where everything starts from scratch, they have to justify every penny. It’s part of the government efforts to block leakages and the House is in firm support.”
Gbajabiamila also said the National Assembly would support wholeheartedly the anti corruption policy of the Buhari’s administration even as he said that the rapport between the National Assembly and the presidency would continue to wax stronger.