The National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC),\u00a0Lai Mohammed has said President Mohammadu Buhari is not the Leader of the\u00a0Party.<\/p>\n
Mohammed said Buhari is just a product of the Party. He however admitted\u00a0that Bola Tinubu is the leader of the APC.<\/p>\n
“Buhari is not the leader of the APC, he is a product of the APC. We have\u00a0a lot of leaders in APC and Bola Tinubu is one of them.” Mohammed said.<\/p>\n
The APC’s Spokesman said the party would resolve its in-house crisis over\u00a0the choice of candidates for the leadership of the upper and lower\u00a0chambers of the National Assembly.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Channels Television via the telephone on Tuesday morning,\u00a0ahead of the election of the principal officers of the National Assembly,\u00a0Mohammed said that the leadership of the All Progressives Congress has\u00a0been \u201ca honest broker\u201d in the matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe party\u2019s position is very simple. We will not go to the floor of the\u00a0National Assembly with more than one candidate for the post of Speaker and\u00a0that of the Senate President.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we did was the most democratic. We arranged for a straw poll where\u00a0the members of the National Assembly elect will choose who will be their\u00a0candidate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere must be discipline in the party, at the same time, there must be\u00a0cohesion in the party and this is what we are trying to achieve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He revealed that efforts to ensure the resolution would continue ahead of\u00a0the NASS election with President Muhammadu Buhari scheduled to address all\u00a0APC House members-elect and Senators-elect at 9AM on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
He maintained the party\u2019s impartiality in its conduct of the June 6 straw\u00a0poll from which Mr Femi Gbajabiamila emerged as candidate for the House of\u00a0Reps Speaker, while Ahmed Lawan emerged as candidate for Senate President.<\/p>\n
The supporters of Mr Yakubu Dogara for the position of Speaker were\u00a0reported to have staged a walkout from the election, alleging that undue\u00a0advantage was given to Mr Gbajabiamila enabling his supporters mobilise\u00a0themselves in large numbers to ensure his emergence.<\/p>\n
The same scenario played out for the election of the candidate for the\u00a0position of Senate President, which Senator Bukola Saraki\u2019s supporters\u00a0also boycotted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we are very much on track. We have not imposed any candidate on\u00a0anybody, we\u2019ve asked the people to choose their own representatives, our\u00a0sole aim being that we will not go to the floor of the National Assembly\u00a0with more than one candidate in the party,\u201d Mohammed said.<\/p>\n
He believes the APC\u2019s move, rather than being tagged an imposition, should\u00a0be seen as an act that epitomises democracy.<\/p>\n
He reminded the lawmakers that they did get into the National Assembly as\u00a0independent candidates but on the platform of the party, \u201cIf you could\u00a0accept the guidelines for primaries why can\u2019t you accept the guidelines\u00a0for this straw election?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
He, however, said that if at the end of the meeting with the President,\u00a0the lawmakers refuse to shift grounds and all decide to contest on the\u00a0floor of the National Assembly, the party is \u201cnot short of options\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC),\u00a0Lai Mohammed has said President Mohammadu Buhari is not the Leader of the\u00a0Party. Mohammed said Buhari is just a product of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n