Obasanjo’s peace mission backfires over APC crisis

Firstclass newsline gathered that the efforts by the Senate President,
Senator Bukola Saraki, to nip in the bud the crisis set off by the
recent election of the principal officers of the National Assembly may
have hit a brick wall.
The crisis of confidence which has pitted party leaders of the All
Progressives Congress against the new principal officers of the
National Assembly may take a turn for the worse this week.
Contrary to the belief in several quarters, President Muhammadu
Buhari, who is widely believed to have accepted the election of the
principal officers as afait accompli, is said to be unhappy with the
leadership of the National Assembly.
Sources close to the two camps told a source that President Buhari and
senior party officials were still peeved that Saraki and other party
members defied the party and formed an alliance with the former ruling
party, the Peoples Democratic Party.
The APC senators loyal to Saraki had on June 9 boycotted a peace
meeting convened by Buhari and the leadership of the party. The
meeting, which was attended by senators loyal to Senator Ahmad Lawan,
the APC's official candidate for the position of the Senate President,
was going on when Saraki, with the support of his loyalists in the APC
and all the PDP senators, emerged as the senate president unopposed.
Since then, the party has been in crisis, even though the APC had said
it would work with Saraki.
During the week, Saraki, paid a well publicised visit to former
President Olusegun Obasanjo. His aim, reports say, was to seek the
former president's intervention in the crisis. Saraki wanted Obasanjo
to pacify the APC leaders on his behalf. But firstclass newsline
learnt that the former president's intervention has failed to yield
the results desired by Saraki and his camp.
It was learnt that shortly after Saraki's visit to the former
president, Obasanjo made a telephone call to Buhari advising him to
make up with Saraki. The former president had reportedly told the
president to work with Saraki and let the party deal with all the
disciplinary issues that the former governor of Kwara State had been
accused of. However, the President was said to have been
non-committal.
Sources privy to these happenings told firstclass newsline that the
telephone call initiated by Obasanjo was not the first time the former
president would intervene in the matter.firstclass newsline reliably
gathered that Obasanjo had met with Buhari in South Africa, last
Sunday, and sought his help in resolving the crisis in the ruling
party. Sources said that the former president, who was in Zambia for
the 22nd annual general meeting of the African Export-Import Bank, had
travelled from there to South Africa to meet with President Buhari.
Speaking over the weekend, some senior party leaders expressed doubts
about the viability of Obasanjo's intervention. They told a source in
different interviews that Saraki is an ally of former vice-president
Atiku Abubakar whom Obasanjo is not very fond of.
One of them said, "It is not a secret that Atiku is solidly behind
Saraki. How the senate president thinks Obasanjo will back any move by
Atiku is what we don't understand. Atiku was the first person that
Saraki visited when he emerged as senate president. The ex-president
will definitely not turn Saraki back but deep in his heart, he knows
which camp he belongs to."
But a source in the corridors of power told a source on the condition
of anonymity that the President's response to pleas for his
intervention had remained the same.
Sources said while Buhari was careful not to make his disappointment
with Saraki public, he was very angry that the senate president led a
rebellion against his party and also teamed up with the PDP to
undermine it. One other reason the crisis has remained intractable,
the source added, was the emergence of Senator Ike Ekweremadu as the
Deputy Senate President.
"The President believes that Saraki earned the support of the PDP
because of the deputy senate presidency he conceded to the opposition
party. It is a treacherous thing to do to one's party," the source
said.
Buhari had reportedly shunned all moves by Saraki to meet him before
the senate president's visit to Obasanjo.
However, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and
Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, said Buhari was not avoiding Saraki.
Rather, he said, it was the Senate President who is yet to visit the
presidency. When asked specifically when Saraki would be meeting with
the President, Shehu said it was left for the President of the Senate
to decide.
"There is no truth in the claims that the President does not want to
meet with any of the National Assembly leaders. He has said that he
respects institutions and that strong men build institutions," Garba
said.
Firstclass newsline learnt that Saraki may be reluctant to make an
approach because he doesn't want to be rebuffed. A prominent member of
the Like Minds Senators, a group sympathetic to the senate president,
confirmed that Saraki had not fixed an appointment with Buhari after
meeting Obasanjo.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said, "After the meeting with
Obasanjo, there has been no specific move on the part of the senate
president to meet with Mr. President. They will meet at the
appropriate time."
A senior APC official, who confided in a source , said, "From all
indications, all sides in the crisis are maintaining their hard-line
positions on the crisis. It seems Saraki is not ready for
reconciliation. His group is insisting on its position. The Lawan
group has given its conditions for peace and the President believes
that there must be party discipline."
Meanwhile, in a clear sign that the president may not have a problem
with the leadership of the House, Buhari will be granting audience to
the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, this week.
The meeting, firstclass newsline learnt, is at the instance of Dogara.
Shehu, confirmed Buhari's meeting with Dogara. He however declined to
give details of the specific day on which the meeting would hold.
"I have just gone through the President's activities for the week and
I saw that Dogara is scheduled to meet with him (the President) during
the week," Shehu said.
On his part, the spokesperson for the pro- Saraki group, Senator Dino
Melaye, said the senate president had appeared before the party's
reconciliation committee.
He said, "The party set up a reconciliation committee with the APC
General Secretary as Chairman and Saraki had appeared before the
committee.
Firstclassnewsline.net