Dogara Opts For Peace, Concedes House Leader To Gbajabiamila Camp

Dogara said that he visited the state on his way to Ubulu-Uku to commission a project.

Meanwhile, the House ad hoc committee on media has said that due process was breached in the process of arriving at the APC’s position letter on the principal officers.

APC has in a letter to the speaker nominated Gbajabiamila as the House leader, Alhassan Ado Doguwa as deputy House leader, Tahir Monguno as Chief Whip, while Paly Iriase becomes deputy chief whip.

The Gbajabiamila group said Wednesday it was unaware of the offer by the Dogara group, as the mediator, Mr. Tambuwal, was yet to brief its members after their initial meeting. “So that means clearly it is not the party’s position”, he said.

The opposing faction of APC lawmakers in the House, led by the speaker, Yakubu Dogara, had told PREMIUM TIMES that it was willing to concede the Majority Leader position to the Gbajabiamila group, on the condition that the candidate for the slot must be from any zone other than North East or South West, since both zones produced the Speaker and Deputy Speaker respectively.

“Three things we agreed”. We have utmost respect for the chairman but that letter did not pass through all the party’s relevant legal organs. The NWC must have met and agreed on the position, but it appears some members of the National Working Committee are not even aware of this position. It was a product of one or two governors and of course the national chairman. “Our position is that we do not recognise the existence of such letter”.

Dogara’s supporters however said that they would rather ensure that federal character as enshrined in Nigeria’s constitution is adhered to in the appointment of Principal Officers of the House.

He said while ceding the position of leader to the Gbajabiamila camp, it was made clear that sharing the six principal officers of the House must be in tandem with the constitution as regards the federal character, adding that it will be unfair to exclude any geopolitical zone in sharing positions.

“The year has gone half way already and we need to get down to work”.

“The entire APC members would hold an election to elect the house leaders, If someone says he has 174 members, fine let’s hold an election and see if he actually has that majority he claims”. That is our position. This morning, we received lots of phone calls, under normal circumstances we are not supposed to make a public statement on this.

“As it is now you all know it is not news that some zones have already gone to court”.

He said that the issue of the letter from the National Chairman where some members loyal to the party were nominated as the principal officers will not be read as there was a court case instituted by some member for the letter not to be read. So, these are some of the issues that we have discussed and we did this in a very patriotic way.

But in their reaction, the APC loyalists maintained that the party’s position on the sharing of principal office positions must be sustained.

APC governors had, after their meeting last week, formed a committee led by Mr. Tambuwal to mediate and find a solution to the crisis in the House.

But Rufa’I Chanchangi said a statement, on behalf of the group that they are only aware of Tambuwal’s meeting with president Buhari and another meeting with the Dogara group on Tuesday.

The group said it has made its position clear to a peace committee headed by Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, that its members will only accept an offer that guarantees the emergence of Mr. Gbajabiamila as the leader of APC in the House.

Speaker Dogara visits Delta state. Interestingly the six geopolitical zones in the country are not recognised by the constitution.