NASS Leadership Election: APC to avoid 2015 mistake in 2021

Barely 54 days to the election of key principal officers into both the House of Representative and Senate, the leadership of the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, has taken its stance, saying it will not repeat the mistake of 2015 in 2019.

The APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, stated this at a dinner organised in honour of House of Representatives members-elect at the State House old Banquet Hall, Abuja, on Tuesday night.

From what the Vanguard reports, the APC”s National Chairman has said that” In life, mistakes are permitted but it becomes a problem if the mistake is repeated twice. We are determined not to repeat the mistakes of 2015 in 2019, we have learnt our lesson,” he said.

He also stated that all ‘strategic committees’ in the two chambers of NASS must be headed by members of the party. According to him, ”we do not need to do business with the devil for us to survive in the ninth assembly. Out of 223 APC elected members, about 67 were re-elected, the rest are new members. In other climes, you don’t go into coalition when you are in the majority, you do so when you don’t have the numbers. We have the numbers, out of 306, Nigerians elected 223 APC members because they don’t want Mr President to face the trauma of 2015.

“Most of those who decamped were rejected and even those who led it were uprooted. We cannot as a party which has a comfortable majority, entrust critical committees in the hands of the PDP or opposition. If Nigerians wanted them, they could have voted them. In the days of PDP, every committee was chaired by PDP members,” Oshiomhole said.

As reported by Vanguard news, Oshiomhole has described Saraki and Dogara as selfish and greedy politicians. He said both the re-elected and new members of the APC were entitled to heading committees. The APC boss, therefore, reiterated that the APC would never share what belonged to it with the opposition. He explained that the meeting with President Buhari was meant to ensure the smooth election of officials of the forthcoming ninth national assembly. “In an African family, we sit down in a closed door to address issues, the good news is that there is a role for everyone,” he added.

Report has it that, among those who spoke to the State House Correspondents after the closed-door meeting with the President was the Director-General of Femi Gbajabiamila’s campaign for Speakership, Abdulmumuni Jibril, and other APC leadership, who officially presented Femi Gbajabiamila to the President as the party’s consensus candidate. President Buhari had on March 26 also hosted Senators-elect of the APC to a similar dinner at the Presidential Villa.

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