Senate Crisis: Gov. Oshiomhole Speaks on APC Alleged Plot to Remove Ekweremadu

APC Governor, Adams Oshiomole have said President Muhammadu Buhari is more concerned about running an all-inclusive government.

Answering media enquiries yesterday during a visit to the Presidential Villa, Abuja from State House Correspondents, Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole said the APC has no plan to remove Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who is of the opposition PDP from office, and that President Buhari is more concerned about running an all-inclusive government.

According to him, the need to evolve an urgent solution to the National Assembly leadership crisis is the immediate priority of the APC. He said it has become necessary to give some form of recognition to the APC lawmakers, who were away during the National Assembly leadership election. He stated;

“You are familiar with the situation that has produced a senate president of APC and a deputy senate president from PDP and of course the fact that many APC senators were not present when the elections were held and that they now have what they called quota- a technical issue about whether they formed quorum or not.

But whatever position you take, the truth of the matter is that majority of APC senators were in a location at the invitation of the party waiting for party briefing when elections were held in the senate and that has produced an upset.

Now the current effort is to try to see how you would have an all inclusive leadership in the senate; that those who were not present, not because they were sleeping, but because they honoured the party’s invitation. By the time they were done, their colleagues have had election in collaboration with PDP senators that were present.

So, I feel the position now is ‘look how do you ensure that having elected these two, that the remaining position that are within the discretion of the APC caucus in the senate are distributed in a way as to give the other group that were shut out of the process a sense of belonging’.

We are convinced that a winner takes all in this case won’t work and building peace is making concession and power works better when it acknowledges that even the person who is powerless has a right to exist. My brother and I spent some time with the senators last night and we had what I think was a useful conversation.

We have come today (yesterday) to report to the president what transpired at those meetings and make few suggestions to him and I think for me there is light, as they say, at the end of the tunnel. One thing is clear, we are all APC family, we are all committed to change.

Nobody is suggesting that we shouldn’t work with PDP. PDP exists in the house, just as APC had existed in the house under PDP government.

So, at some point there has to be a way to engage bipartisan. So, that is basically why we are here.”