National leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC and former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is absent at the ongoing meeting of the National Executive Committee, NEC meeting of the party in Abuja.
Also, former interim National Chairman of the party, Chief Bisi Akande was also not present at the meeting.
Both leaders of the party have apparently not hidden their dissatisfaction with the national assembly leadership election held on June 9.
The elections eventually plunged the party into crisis, eliciting verbal attacks and cold war amongst leaders of the party.
Early this week, Akande wrote a controversial open letter where he alleged a conspiracy of the north against the south west, warning that the party may lose future elections if the crisis was not nipped in the bud. The letter has generated reactions within and outside the party.
Sources close to the two APC leaders from the South West confided in the Street Journal that they were not particularly happy with the lackadaisical attitude of President Mohammadu Buhari and the APC Chairman, Odigie Oyegun whom both Tinubu and Akande believe failed to take charge as party leaders to nib the crisis in the bud.
An APC NWC member who spoke with our correspondent on phone said the crisis could be resolved without the presence of Tinubu nor Akande if the party leaders toed the party of commonsense and fair-play. He said both Saraki and Dogara were given too much leverage before and after the June 9 NASS leadership elections that polarized the ruling party. He said, what the president was doing today ought to have been done earlier than now ”to call both Dogara and Saraki and their cohorts to order”. He noted that this would have saved the party and the country the national embarrassment that the crisis in the House of Representatives caused the nation.
According to our source, the failure of Buhari to take charge as leader of the party by virtue of his position as president of the country under the guise of not wanting to interfere with the activities of the National Assembly led the party to the present ‘sorry state’ of affairs. He lamented that the crisis in the party has slowed down the pace of work in the presidency with the absence of ministers that would help the president actualize his vision for the country. ”Unless we are deceiving ourselves; this crisis is affecting the pace of work in the presidency. There are certain actions that needed the lawmakers’ consideration before the president can go ahead with executive actions”, he said.
He however, disclosed that the president and other NWC members should insist on party supremacy which Saraki and Dogara must abide with in order to move the party forward. He said they can’t eat their cake and have it, stressing that once they got the positions of Senate President and Speaker of the House by fraudulent means and no punitive measures have been taken against them, the only sensible thing to do is to allow the party to have its way in the remaining principal offices in the two chambers of the NASS.
He lamented that through the fraudulent means Saraki in particular got the position of Senate president in connivance with his old friends in PDP, APC has lost the position of Deputy Senate President to the opposition, PDP, a situation he said was never witnessed throughout the 16 years that PDP was at the saddle at the centre.
”Tinubu may not be talking, but I can assure you that he’s not a fool. And nobody can use him and dump him just like that. He is not fighting for himself nor his son, but the Yoruba race that invested so much in the electoral victory of president Buhari and other elective position holders from APC today”, he said in a voice replete with warning.
Our source noted that the gang-up against Tinubu by some losers in the APC primaries in 2014 led by former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and former House of Reps Speaker, now Sokoto State Governor, Tambuwal will not see the light of the day. He said some APC leaders from the north who are still nursing the ambition of becoming president even when the present administration of Buhari is yet to take off are behind the conspiracy against Ashiwaju Tinubu in order to decimate his influence in the Buahri government.
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