N/Assembly: 8 APC governors ask Oyegun to resign

Party sources said the governors, who gave the quit notice to Oyegun, included Nasir el-Rufai (Kaduna), Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola (Osun), Abubakar Sani Bello (Niger), Senator Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo), Atiku Bagudu (Kebbi), Abubakar Badaru (Jigawa), Adams Oshiomhole (Edo), and Tanko Al-Makura (Nasarawa), who were at the party’s National Secretariat yesterday.
The APC boss met the governors after he was excused at a meeting of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC).
When approached by journalists for comment after their meeting with the chairman, the governors refused to speak on the issue. They entered their vehicles and left the party’s secretariat.
The party’s national publicity secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who was asked on telephone about what transpired between the APC chairman and the governors, said he could not explain what happened since he was not part of the meeting.
“I am not privy to what the governors came to discuss with the national chairman in his office. But I can assure you that they did not come to ask him to resign,” Mohammed said.
However, another member of the NWC, who spoke to Daily Trust on telephone after the meeting, said the governors came to see the chairman on behalf of others in order to find a lasting solution to the crisis confronting the party, pointing out that the party’s committee on the crisis had reached some decisions after series of meetings.
He added that a letter would be drafted and sent to the National Assembly to convey the party’s position.
Oyegun had earlier held another meeting with the APC senators who lost out of the National Assembly leadership election. The senators, led by Ahmed Lawan, included George Akume, Kabiru Marafa, Senator Barau Jibril, Ajayi Borrofice, Olusola Adeyeye and Suleiman Hunkuyi.
Though the details of the meeting was not made available, it was gathered that it focused on the leadership tussle in the National Assembly, particularly in the senate, where there is still contention over the remaining four positions of principal officers between pro-Lawan and pro-senate president Bukola Saraki lawmakers.
It could be recalled that the APC deputy national publicity secretary, Mr Timi Frank, had earlier called for the resignation Oyegun over his handling of the National Assembly leadership election crisis.
Last Friday, Chief Odigie-Oyegun endorsed the emergence of Senator Saraki as Senate President and Mr Yakubu Dogara, Speaker, the House of Representatives.
He held meetings with Saraki and Dogara at his residence in Abuja on Monday.

Meanwhile, deputy national chairman (North) of the party Senator Lawan Shuaibu has said that there was no time that governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) asked the National Chairman of the party Chief John Oyegun to resign.

Daily Trust, along with other national dailies, had reported earlier that the governors asked Oyegun to resign after a meeting held at the APC national secretariat on Tuesday.

But Shuaibu, in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service monitored in Abuja on Wednesday said there was no such thing.

“I don’t know who asked the national chairman to resign, because the governors that visited him declared their support on the party’s position about the leadership of the National Assembly,” Shuaibu told the BBC.