The All Progressives Congress (APC) has described as totally unacceptable and the highest level of indiscipline and treachery the conduct of Tuesday's inauguration of the National Assembly that led to the emergence of Senator Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara as Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, respectively.
National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said in a statement that the leadership of the party was meeting to determine sanctions to be meted out to those who had betrayed it.
''Senator Bukola and Hon. Dogara are not the candidates of the APC and a majority of its National Assembly members-elect for the positions of Senate President and House Speaker,” Mohammed statement said.
He noted that party had duly met and conducted a straw poll and that clear candidates emerged for the posts of Senate President, Deputy Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, supported by a majority of all Senators-elect and members-elect of the House of Representatives. To that end, all National Assembly members-elect who emerged on the platform of the party were bound by that decision, he said.
Pointing out that the party is supreme and its interest superior to that of its individual members, Mohammed stated, “Consequently, the APC leadership is meeting in a bid to reestablish discipline in the party and to mete out the necessary sanctions to all those involved in what is nothing but a monumental act of indiscipline and betrayal to subject the party to ridicule and create obstacles for the new administration.”
The party decried a situation in which some people, based on nothing but inordinate ambition and lack of discipline and loyalty, would enter into an unholy alliance with the very same people whom the party and indeed the entire country worked hard to replace and sell out the party’s hard-won victory.
''There can be no higher level of treachery, disloyalty and insincerity within any party,'' the party said, vowing to resolve the matter using all constitutional and legal means available to it.
Meanwhile, the APC has asked all its loyal Senators-elect to please report to the Senate to be sworn-in in order to discharge their constitutional duties. Majority of the Senators were at a party meeting when Senator Saraki led a breakaway faction to inaugurate the Senate and got himself “elected” by a unanimous vote by PDP and APC senators.