The Presidential spokesman, Mallam Shehu Garba has revealed why President Muhammadu Buhari decided to steer clear of the leadership crisis rocking the National Assembly if governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC, do not ask him to do so.
According to Shehu, Buhari would only step into the matter at the point when the APC state governors inform him that they cannot fix the problem, adding that it was necessary because the governors had during a meeting they had with the President on Tuesday night promised to handle the issue.
Garba Shehu stated these on Thursday while featuring on Channels TV Sunrise programme.
He said: “When the governors met with the President, they told him that ‘we are the leaders in our states and we have influence over all of these senators. They come from our places and from us and we can handle it.’
“The President will step into the crisis at the point when the governors say they can no longer fix it.”
Shehu however insisted that even if the President steps in, he would not do that to the level of imposing leaders on the lawmakers, adding that Buhari’s position on the matter had remained that the National Assembly is an independent arm of government and he would not be seen meddling in their affairs.
The presidential spokesman equally hinted that what was currently playing out in the National Assembly does not suggest that the situation had gone out of control.
“The President has a responsibility to the party, the President has a responsibility to the nation and as far as we are looking at the situation it has not gotten out of control. It is still within manageable parameters, it is a little storm we will overcome and Nigerians better get used to it,” he added.
On the leadership of the party, Shehu, in apparent reaction to a statement made by the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, that Buhari is not the leader of the party, said the President was the leader.
“Does it need to be said? I don’t think it needs to be said that the President is the leader of his party. There’s no question about it,” he declared.
He said there is need for Nigerians to understand the basics of politics as the country is no more in the military era when decrees are made by a single leader.
“Politics, as its theory says, is basically about contest for interests and these interests may be fully defined by political party programmes, while some of these things may be outside political party programmes,” he said.
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