President Muhammadu Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), have sharply disagreed on how to relate with the leadership of the National Assembly that emerged as the 8^th Assembly convened today in the country’s capital, Abuja. While Buhari has expressed his readiness to work with the elected Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, APC declared their emergence unacceptable and vowed to discipline its members involved in the process.

It has been a day on which the party was worsted in the Assembly, with the candidates endorsed by it being roundly defeated in both chambers of parliament. While Senator Bukola Saraki emerged as Senate President, Hon. Yakubu Dogara was elected Speaker of the House of Reps – both with the active support of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). APC had chosen Senator Ahmed Lawan as its candidate for Senate Presidency and Hon. Femi Gabjabiamila for the position of the Speaker.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, said this evening in a statement in Abuja: “President Buhari had said in an earlier statement that he did not have any preferred candidate for the Senate and the House of Representatives, and that he was willing to work with whoever the lawmakers elected.

“That sentiment still stands, though he would have preferred the new leaders to have emerged through the process established by the party.”

Adesina said that the stability of the nation’s constitutional order and overall interest of the common man were uppermost on President Buhari’s mind, as far as the National Assembly elections were concerned. He called on all the elected representatives of the people to focus on the enormous task of bringing enduring positive change to the lives of Nigerians.

APC, however, took a different position in a statement entitled ‘Emergence of Saraki, Dogara as Senate President, House Speaker unacceptable to APC’.

The party described as totally unacceptable and the highest level of indiscipline and treachery the emergence of Senator Bukola Saraki and Hon Yakubu Dogara as Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, respectively.

“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. The party duly met and conducted a straw poll and 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. All National Assembly members-elect who emerged on the platform of the party are bound by that decision.

“The party is supreme and its interest is superior to that of its individual members,” the party said in a statement issued this evening in Abuja by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

“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,” it said.

APC decried “a situation in which some people, based on nothing but inordinate ambition and lack of discipline and loyalty, will 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 hard won victory of the party.”

“There can be no higher level of treachery, disloyalty and insincerity within any party,” the ruling party said, vowing to resolve the matter using all constitutional and legal means available to it.

APC, however, asked all its loyal Senators-elect “to please report to the Senate to be sworn-in in order to discharge their constitutional duties.”

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