AHEAD of their scheduled parley with the ruling All Progressives Congress and the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, in Abuja, a number of senators-elect and members-elect of the House of Representatives were on Sunday spotted in town.
Among those seen were the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan; Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, who was recently re-elected as the senator representing Ekiti Central Senatorial District, and Kano North senator-elect, Barau Jibrin.
The closed door meeting, which is scheduled to hold at the State House in Abuja on Monday, has generated a lot of talking interest in the last few days.
Although the agenda of the meeting was not revealed, a source at the APC secretariat told our correspondent that it has to everything do with early consultation and strategic plan concerning the issue of zoning of the Senate Presidency, Speaker for the House of Reps and other principal offices of the National Assembly.
According to the source, the ‘ghost of the civilian coup’ executed by the duo of Senator Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara to emerge as Senate President and House of Representatives Speaker in 2015 is still haunting the ruling party.
It was also learnt that the top agenda for the meeting was the call for the resignation of the National Chairman of the APC, Abdullahi Adamu, and the leadership of the National Assembly.
A senator-elect, who spoke on condition of anonymity, explained that Adamu’s resignation tops the agenda of the meeting.
He said, “There were serious concerns before we went into the election and many of us believe that Adamu should resign to assuage the feelings of the Christian community towards our party.
“The calculation then was that our Christian brothers and sisters would soften their hard stance against our party if we produce one of them as the National Chairman of the APC.
“There were, however, superior arguments that such arrangements could only be put in place during the party’s convention. It was also argued that it was not better to go into the election with a divided house.
“However, it was agreed that something urgent should be done about it immediately our presidential and vice presidential candidates emerged victorious at the poll.
“I will not be surprised if the National Chairman comes to the meeting tomorrow (today) with his resignation letter in his pocket.”
Some of the senators in town for the meeting were Senator Sani Musa (Niger East), Opeyemi Bamidele (Ekiti Central). It was gathered that Senator-elect, Patrick Ndubueze (Imo-North), would fly into Abuja today.
In a telephone interview with our correspondent, Senator Sani Musa confirmed that he was in town and gearing up for the meeting.
He said, “I am in town and I’m preparing for tomorrow’s (Monday) meeting.”
Also, a message from the media office of Senator Opeyemi Bamidele confirmed that he was in Abuja.
“Senator Opeyemi Bamidele is in town and all prepared for tomorrow’s meeting. The meeting is very crucial to him,” the statement read.
Similarly, the media aide to Senator Solomon Adeola, Kayode Odunaro, noted that he could not tell if his boss was already in town as he was yet to speak to him today.
He said, “I cannot tell if Senator Adeola is already in town but from our last conversation, if he’s not in today (Sunday), he should be in very early tomorrow morning.”
Also, Nwokorie David, media aide to Senator-elect, Ndubheze noted that his principal would have been in Abuja Sunday tonight but for the postponement of his flight.
He said, “He was on his way to the airport when his flight was cancelled.
‘’He will be on board first thing tomorrow morning, Godwilling.’
The invitation for the meeting, which was signed by APC National Secretary, Iyiola Omisore, was also published via the party’s official Twitter handle at about 10.08 pm on Friday.
While requesting the guests to come along with the Certificate of Return issued to them by the Independent National Electoral Commission after they were declared winners, the statement equally urged them to arrive early enough to participate in a screening exercise before the event slated for 2pm.
The scheduled parley is coming on the heels of calls by concerned members of the party including the National Vice Chairman (North-West) of the APC and member of National Working Committee, Mallam Salihu Lukman, who felt there is a need to lock down the sensitive position of Speaker and Senate President after the positions of President and Vice President were zoned to the South-West and North-East, respectively.
When contacted on Sunday evening, the Special Assistant to the Senate President on Media Matter, Ola Awoniyi, confirmed that his principal was in town.
He said, “The Senate President is in town.”
In the same vein, the Director of Media and Publicity, Bayo Onanuga, also told our correspondent that Tinubu was looking forward to having a great deliberation with the senators-elect and their House of Representatives counterparts.
“I am sure Asiwaju will definitely be in attendance. The last I called him, I was told he is resting. But I have no idea about their agenda for tomorrow meetiñg,” he said.