NASS crisis will be over soon – Oshiomhole

*I won’t resign – Deputy Speaker, Lasun, insists

Governor Adams Oshiomhole has said that there is already light at the end of the tunnel as far as the on-going leadership crisis in the National Assembly, especially the Senate, is concerned.

He spoke with State House correspondents after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari alongside Governor Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi State.

The two governors were chosen by the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to mediate in the leadership crisis rocking the Senate as a result of the emergence of Bukola Saraki as president of the Senate against the party’s choice, Ahmed Lawan.

Oshiomhole said after meeting with the warring senators on Sunday evening, he and Bagudu decided to meet and brief the president of the grounds they had covered.

He said with the emergence of the principal officers of the Senate, their intervention was just to ensure that there would be an all-inclusive leadership in the National Assembly.

“I feel the position now is ‘look how do you ensure that having elected this two (Senate President and his Deputy), that the remaining positions that are within the discretion of the APC caucus in the Senate are distributed in a way as to give the other group that were shut out of the process a sense of belonging?’”

“We are convinced that a winner-takes-all in this case won’t work and building peace is making concession and power works better when it acknowledges that even the person who is powerless has a right to exist.

“My brother (Bagudu) and I spent some time with the senators last night (Sunday) and we had what I think was a useful conversation. We have come today to report to the president what transpired at the meeting and make few suggestions to him and I think for me there is light, as they say, at the end of the tunnel.

“One thing is clear, we are all APC family, we are all committed to change. We recognise that there are few issues; people may not be comfortable, but we have what it takes to resolve the issues so that in the National Assembly we will have an APC Senate caucus that is united, that is ready to support the change agenda as the president is committed to and work along with PDP.

“Nobody is suggesting that we shouldn’t work with PDP. PDP exists in the House, just as APC had existed in the House under PDP government. So, at some point there has to be a way to engage bipartisan. So, that is basically why we are here.”

Shedding more lights on their discussion with the president, Bagudu said the issue at stake was not about what should be done or what should be left undone.

The governor said the important thing was that the APC caucus members in the Senate were desirous of evolving a solution that will bring inclusiveness so that the Senate and indeed the House would remain bodies that will serve the interest of Nigeria as promised by the party.

The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yussuf Lasun, again on Monday, insisted he would resist any level of pressure on him to step down.

It would be recalled that there have been pressures from some All Progressives Congress leaders, chieftains and the government of Osun State on the deputy speaker to resign for Femi Gbajabiamila, who was the party’s adopted candidate in the election of presiding officer of the House on June 9.

But the embattled deputy speaker said his constituency has been playing prominent role for the victory of the opposition party which is now the ruling party since 2007, insisting that stepping down was not possible for him.

Lasun stated this when people from his constituency under the umbrella of the Ilobu Development Association, Osun, Abuja branch, paid a solidarity visit to him in his office.