Outgoing Senate President, Ahmad Lawan has one strong message for opposition party in the country; you cannot produce the leadership of the National Assembly, NASS.
Lawan spoke barely 24 hours after some opposition lawmakers in the House of Representatives are making subterranean moves to ensure that they snatched key NASS positions from the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, which has majority members in both the Senate and House of Reps.
In the House of Reps for instance, the APC cannot muster the majority to produce the leadership without the opposition parties.
The opposition parties are aware of this, and are now capitalising on their strength to negotiate for key positions in the 10th assembly, those monitoring what is going on NASS said.
Apart from APC, other major parties that have produced senators and House of Reprs are People’s Democratic Party, PDP, and Labour Party, LP.
From all indications, the opposition parties are also trying to capitalise on APC’s delay to say specifically where it has zoned the Senate President or the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
More trouble came for the ruling APC recently following indications that some senators and House members are trying to frustrate the zoning arrangement by the party for NASS.
These rebel lawmakers, it was learned are now working secretly with opposition lawmakers to achieve their aim of disobeying their party’s plan to zone NASS leadership to certain part of the country in fulfilment of its power sharing arrangement.
Reacting to this plot on Friday, Lawan said the opposition cannot stop the APC’s quest to produce key NASS leaders in the 10th Assembly.
He spoke after joining residents of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, for a Sallah homage to President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the nation’s capital.
“I don’t think opposition parties are planning to usurp because it is presumptuous that the APC will not be a united party,” he said.
“APC is a united party and the opposition party will simply work with the APC majority for us to have stability because there is no way an opposition will decide who should be the senate president or who should be the speaker; it is our party and other leaders that will decide which zone or whoever, and the rest of us in the party will key in and of course, the opposition would have no option but to support.
“I don’t see anything wrong in the opposition talking to us, or we talking to the opposition to ensure that we’re on the same page because we need opposition to ensure that we get most of our constitutional amendments when the time is right, passed. because we can’t have the 73 in the Senate.
“So, you need 73 senators at least for you to have any constitutional amendment. So, you would need opposition.
“That’s why it is very, very critical, it is very essential that you work with opposition right from the beginning.
“Don’t ever think the opposition should be pushed away. I now believe in that. I only believe in the very bipartisan chamber because it is more productive. It is more stable, it’s calm, and it gives you the kind of outcome that you will never get with a very rancourous chamber. And I’ve seen it, we have done it.”
Lawan is not expected to contest for Senate President following what the magazine learned, is the decision of the ruling APC to zone the office to either the south east or south south.
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