(Romanus Ugwu, ABUJA)
Acting National Public Secretary of All Progressives Congress (APC), Timi Frank, has said that the belated intervention of the ruling party leadership to the rift at the House of Representatives, is an embarrassment to President Muhammadu Buhari.
Speaking to journalists in Abuja over the drilling of immediate Reps chairman Appropriation Committee, Hon Abdulmunin Jibril, by the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party, Comrade Frank argued that the action of party was a show of shame.
He further claimed that the sacked committee chairman does not have any respect for the NWC under Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, urging external party leaders like former Vice president Atiku Abubakar and former Lagos state governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to intervene.
While commending Sen. Shuibu Lawal-led committee for intervening in the scandal, Frank said: “This is what they ought to have done when the allegation was fresh.”
“I expected that after summoning Abdulmumini to the party secretariat, he would have restrained himself but reading the dailies today, the man is still speaking and insisting that the Speaker must resign, this has shown that he cannot listen to the party anymore because the battle has gone dirty.
“It’s very sad that we allowed this to get to this level, I expected us to intervene when Hon Abulmumini first came up with the allegations against the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, that’s when the party should have moved to save this whole saga.
“Whether we like it or not as a party, what is happening to Speaker Dogara, is not just embarrassing to him as the number four man in Nigeria but embarrassing to the APC leadership and Nigerians at large who have confidence in our party.
“At this point in time, I want to use this opportunity to advise my party leadership, we must not let this type of mistake to repeat itself again, we must be prompt to respond to issues before they get to the public.
“For 17 years of our democracy, this is the first time we have seen where the number three man of the man is being tried under its own party. This is a clear pointer that our party could not handle the issue when it was raised in the beginning. As far as I am concerned, the party keeping mute resulted in the disgrace of the Senate President that is why he’s being tried.
“We must do everything to make the President achieve his plans. We must do everything possible to support the President as a party, whether we like it or not, whether we like it or not, the President is the leader of the party, if the party is not getting it right, Nigerians will not hold the party responsible, they will say the President has failed to put his house in order. We must save the president from all these embarrassment going on internally in our party. We must the President from the current mess in the National Assembly,” he said.