A member of the House of Representatives representing Kiru/Bebeji federal constituency of Kano State, Hon. Abdulmuminu Jibrin, said the All Progressives Congress (APC) would not tolerate any alliance between its members and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the choice of leadership of the 9th National Assembly.
Fielding questions from State House correspondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in his office at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, the lawmaker said APC would not allow a repeat of how the incumbent President of the Senate Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki and the Speaker of House of Representatives Mr Yakubu Dogara emerged as leaders of the two chambers of the National Assembly.
He said unlike in the 2015 where there were no consequences when the current principal officers of the National Assembly emerged against the wish of the party, the situation in 2019 would be different.
He said the APC would deal decisively with any Senator or member of the House of Representative who allows himself or herself to be used by the opposition party in an attempt to produce the leadership of the chambers of the National Assembly.
“I am pretty sure that this time around, if anybody allowed himself to be used by the opposition party, there will certainly be consequences. The position of our party and our leaders has always been that all elected members and of course, senators, should exercise patience, work is going on, consultations are being carried out and I believe that no any elected senator or member of APC would allow himself to be used by the opposition like in the case of 2015,” he said.
The lawmaker also condemned what he referred to as “desperate moves” by some Senators and members of the House of Representatives on the leadership positions ahead of the inauguration of the National Assembly in June.
“I have complained about that. The way and manner they are going about it is a bid unhealthy for the party because at the end of the day only one person will become senate president and only one person will become the speaker and other principal officers. So, we need to start imbibing the culture of putting the country first or the party first before ourselves.
“Personally, I have demonstrated that because I have indicated that I am not interested in running for the office of the speaker, deputy speaker or any principal office because of how chucked up the whole system is as regard the number of people that are contesting. Just to open up space and allow some of us to sit down and organise and ensure that the government and of course the party eventually have the kind of parliament or the kind of leadership of the National Assembly that they can work with harmoniously.
“One of the very important issues that we tend to forget is that the narrative has changed completely. All of us tend to be focused on who you want, who want to contest, who wants powers who wants to grap office A or office B. We completely forgotten that what is equally important is for us to start asking the question. The person who will emerge, is he ready to commit to electronic system in the National Assembly so that you all that belong to constituencies would be able to see if your member or senator voted yes or no on any bill, motion or anything in the National Assembly?
“Is he ready commit to open up attendance of members, publish it so that our constituents will be able to see whether their members or senators attend sittings or not? Is he ready to commit to town hall meeting that are attended by members? Is he ready to commit to run a functional constituency office that funds are always provided for? I don’t want to even touch the controversial one because I don’t want to be suspended,” he said.
