There are fresh indications that the crisis in House of Representatives among members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) looks to be winding down.
This follows a report on Premium Times that members of the House of Representatives loyal to Speaker Yakubu Dogara have agreed to concede the position of House Leader to the group loyal to Femi Gbajabiamila, as part of efforts to restore peace to the House.
According to the report, there was a meeting between Dogara and some members of the House, the immediate past Speaker and current governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal on Tuesday evening in Abuja.
The meeting which was as a follow up to the APC governors meeting of last week was aimed at finding a solution to the crisis in the House.
It would be recalled that APC governors had, after their meeting last week, formed a committee led by Tambuwal.
Speaking shortly after the meeting, a member of House told Premium Times that lawmakers had insisted that on the of principal officers of the House,“equity and fair play should be the dominant consideration”.
“There was a consensus that in order to achieve peace and accommodation in the House, that the position of the House Leader be conceded to the Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila Group to nominate a candidate”, he said.
He added: “Considering the constitutional requirement of equitable representation and federal character, such candidate should be from any zone other than the North East and South West Zones that had already produced the Speaker and Deputy Speaker respectively.”
Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila and Hon. Yakubu Dogara
In another report on The Will, the Dogara group conceded that the Femi Gbajabiamila faction may nominate a candidate for the position of House Leader as long as the nominee is not from the south west and north east geo-political zones which already produced the deputy speaker and speaker respectively.
Their position effectively rules out Gbajabiamila (Lagos State) who was nominated by the party as House Leader.
The Dogara group also insisted that if its position would not be accepted by the party, the House of Representatives should be allowed to produce its principal officers in accordance with House rules and precedents.
According to them, this was the only way peace could reign in the House especially since there was already a court case instituted by the North Central and South East caucuses in the House.
The House has been entangled in crisis following Dogara’s election against the wish of a fraction of the APC.
The APC had supported Gbajabiamila to emerge speaker. After losing the speakership election, the party nominated the lawmaker as the House Majority Leader, a proposal since opposed by Dogara.
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