The All Progressives Congress (APC) has warned that it won’t accept any other appointments of the National Assembly principal officers outside the ones sent to the leadership of the upper and lower legislative chambers.
The National Secretary of the Party, Mr Mai Mala Buni in a statement on Thursday said the party will only stand by the list sent to the Senate President and the Speaker of the House
Mr Buni adds that the National Caucus, Board of Trustees (BoT) and National Executive Council (NEC) of the party will meet within the next few days to discuss the evolving developments in the National Assembly with the view of proffering a permanent solution to the crisis
Meanwhile, some members of the House of Representatives engaged in fisticuffs over the choice of principal officers while the APC’s wishes was thwarted on the floor of the Senate as a totally different senators emerged as majority principal officers.
The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, defied the directive of the APC on choice of other principal officers, announcing names of three candidates for the Senate leadership positions different from the names submitted by the party.
At Thursday’s plenary session, the Senate President announced Senator Ali Ndume as Senate Majority Leader, Senator Bala Ibn Na Allah as Deputy Senate Majority Leader and Senator Francis Alimikhena as Deputy Chief Whip.
But while it looked like an inevitable conclusion, Senator Kabiru Marafa challenged the decision of the Senate President to read the letters from the APC caucuses and ignoring that sent to him by the party’s leadership.
“The constitution’s provision clearly puts the party ahead of any other caucus from anyone. Mr President, you cannot read any list from any caucus because there is no caucus that is bigger than the party,” he said.
Senator Danjuma Goje from Gombe State fired back at Senator Marafa, claiming that the Senate President had the right to read out the caucus’ list.