Buhari rallies APC members for Lawan, Gbajabiamila

Like a military general rallying the troops for a must-win battle, President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Adams Oshiomhole and APC governors met with the party’s National Assembly members on Monday night ahead of the inauguration of the bicameral parliament today.

The meeting and others before it showed a change of tactics. Four years ago, Buhari had chosen what became a regrettable approach, leaving National Assembly leadership contest to political chance.

This time around, President Buhari and his party canvassed openly for the candidates chosen for the leadership posts at the Assembly. Ahmed Lawan from Yobe North, who was the party’s choice in 2015 is being backed once again to take the presidency of the senate, while Femi Gbajabiamila, from Lagos, is the candidate for the Speakership of the lower House of Representatives. And President Buhari has gotten involved more personally, including getting some candidates, such as Senator Danjuma Goje to drop out of the race for Lawan in the senate.

The party has learnt a bitter lesson after it found itself outsmarted by the two leaders that emerged in 2015, Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara. Both contrived an alliance with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party to snatch the posts. Lawan was not even at the Senate Chambers, back in June 2015, before Saraki was declared unopposed for the post. And to exacerbate the injury, Saraki picked a PDP deputy senate president, breaking all known convention in parliamentary democracy, where the majority party usually holds all leadership positions.

The APC never recovered from the backstabbing and rebellion by Dogara and Saraki. And all through the four years they presided over the affairs of the National Assembly, it was as if they belonged to the opposition party. The duo showed their true colour in the run-up to the 2019 election as they left the APC to join their soulmates in the PDP, hoping to dethrone the APC from Aso Rock. They miscalculated. Dogara won re-election but Saraki was heavily thrashed in Kwara Central. PMNews