Buhari ‘may intervene’ in national assembly crisis

Garba Shehu, senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, says governors of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have assured President Muhammadu Buhari that they would resolve the ongoing crisis in the national assembly.

Shehu, who said the governors advised Buhari not to meddle in the affairs of the legislative arm of government, revealed that the president might wade in if they are unable to handle the situation.

Earlier in the week, Buhari summoned an emergency meeting with the governors to discuss the crisis.

Though Rochas Okorocha, chairman of the APC governors, briefed the media at the end of the meeting, Shehu shed more light about the meeting on Thursday during Sunrise Daily, a breakfast programme on Channels Television.

“When the governors met with the president, they told him that ‘we are the leaders in our states and we have influence over all of these senators. They come from our places and from us and we can handle it,” he said.

“The president mostly listened to what they were saying and in fairness to them, the governors took responsibility for the way forward.

“They advised the president to maintain his posture not to be seen to be meddling in the affairs of the national assembly ‘stay above it and allow us to handle it’ and I think this is what you saw coming from the governors.”

Responding to the question whether the crisis arose because the APC does not have an individual leader who could drive the effort to unify the party in times of crisis, Shehu said: “I don’t think it needs to be said that the president is the leader of his party. There’s no question about it.

“The president has a responsibility to the party … and as far as we are looking at the situation, it has not gotten out of control. It is still within manageable parameters, it is a little storm we will overcome and Nigerians better get used to it.

“As a leader, the president has given guidance… His own position is that if the eye troubles you, whatever medicine you’re going to apply, don’t put a pin.

“The party did a straw poll – an open and transparent one – which should have been respected. The president had wished that the party would take that to the very end but that didn’t happen.”