The members of the new People’s Democratic Party (nPDP) in Nigeria’s governing party, the All Progressives Congress, APC are to reconvene meeting with the Nigerian Vice President, Professor Yemi Osibajo on Monday, June 4, 2018. The APC Deputy National Chairman (North), Senator Lawal Shuaibu stated this in an interview with journalists at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja.
Senator Shuaibu who is representing the APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun said the meeting on Monday will hold with a smaller group of eight which will comprise the Vice President, the Attorney-General, himself (Shuaibu) and five representatives of the former nPDP members.
He said the last meeting with the Vice President which had in attendance twenty former nPDP members dwelt on ‘general discussions’, the next meeting on Monday will “go into the business of discussing the [former nPDP] specific demands.”
It would be recalled that about a month ago, the nPDP presented a letter to the national leaders of APC, where they alleged that they were being sidelined, harassed and intimidated by the APC.
Senator Shuaibu explained the reason why the number of people to attend the next meeting was reduced.
“When we got to the meeting venue in Aguda House, the Vice President felt we were too many. He said for the meeting to achieve any meaningful result, we needed a much smaller group.”
“On that, there debates as to how many people. The Vice President suggested that the nPDP bring three representatives, and then himself, the Attorney General and myself to make up three so that we have six.”
“But they (nPDP) insisted that they needed more than three representatives and we finally settled on five. From there we went into general discussions, nothing specific.”
“We said when they (nPDP) are ready with their five representatives, then we will sit down and go into the business of discussing the specific demands,” Shuaibu said.
He further debunked reports in the media that at the previous meeting with the Vice President, the nPDP demanded that the trial of Nigeria’s Senate President Bukola Saraki before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).
“There was no time during Monday’s meeting the condition was given that Senator Bukola Saraki’s CCT trial must be withdrawn. I don’t know where they got that story from. I have a strong feeling that whoever wrote that story was only being speculative because nobody could have said that.”
Senator Shuaibu added that the basis for last Monday’s meeting was the content of the nPDP’s letter to the Party and of which the President and Vice President were copied.
“The content of the letter which is now public, that is what the basis of their demands are. At the next meeting on Monday, we will go into the specifics. That letter will be x-rayed point by point” he said.
Responding to whether the meeting touched on the recently conducted ward, local government and state congresses, he said: “The letter did not even bring the issue of congresses because it was written before we started congresses. But the issue of congresses was raised in the meeting of Monday. The House of Representatives Speaker, Yakubu Dogara raised the issue and we said when we come for the specifics, we will talk about that.”
