Senate Leader tells Tinubu to ‘urgently’ reconcile aggrieved members
Leader of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, has said that the appointment of the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu by President Muhammadu Buhari to reconcile the aggrieved members of the party was long overdue.
President Buhari had ordered Buhari to reconcile aggrieved members of the party ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Senator Lawan, APC, Yobe, said that there was no time to waste in carrying out the assignment because elections were fast approaching.
Speaking to State House correspondents after the Friday juma’at service at the State House Mosque, Abuja, he told Asiwaju Tinubu to kick start the process of reconciliation of aggrieved members immediately.
He said, “Fantastic. In fact, that committee should have been constituted long time ago because APC is plagued by some internal issues and I believe that these are issues that are surmountable.
“The Tinubu committee will definitely add value into reconciling the warring sides so to speak. Time is against us, we have to really kick start these process of reconciliation immediately and I believe that as a family we should be able to come out very much much United that we were before.”
On whether there was synergy between the executive and the legislature to solve security problems in the country with the recent security summit, he said the collaboration between the two arms was a welcome development.
“That is what we have been able to achieve with this. The Summit was declared open by the Vice President (Prof. Yemi Osinbajo) on behalf of Mr. President and that was typical example of collaboration, cooperation and partnership between the executive and the legislature. And we are so happy that this partnership is working,” he said.
On some of the conclusions at the meeting, Lawan said, “We have not concluded because the summit will continue on Monday and that will be the end of this particular summit and then the senate will pass resolutions which the executive will definitely consider and implement by the grace of God.
“We should be positive and thinking in a very positive manner that we should be able to solve our problems. If we cannot solve the problems why did we even venture into it? I’m an optimistic person and I believe that coming together the executive and the legislature we can solve any problem in Nigeria if we have the support of Nigerians.
“It is not only those of us in government that are suppose to do everything to solve these kind of challenges but we need the continuous, and relentless support of citizens to ensure that we are able to provide the kind of solutions we need.”
On whether the legislature was in support of State Police as advocated by the Vice President, the Senate Leader said whatever he would be saying was his personal opinion as the entire members of the National Assembly would take a collective decision.
He added, “Well, I am not a legislature as such because I am only one member of the legislature. But as a committee member of the adhoc committee on security and the review of security infrastructure in Nigeria, I believe that the suggestion by the Vice President that we should go the way of state Police and even consider community policing, is very good suggestion and we are going to take it on board in the National Assembly.”