According to Punch, the crisis of confidence which has pitted party leaders of the All Progressives Congress against the new principal officers of the National Assembly may take a turn for the worse this week.
Contrary to the belief in several quarters, President Muhammadu Buhari, who is widely believed to have accepted the election of the principal officers as a fait accompli, is said to be unhappy with the leadership of the National Assembly.
During the week, Saraki, paid a well publicised visit to former President Olusegun Obasanjo. His aim, reports say, was to seek the former president’s intervention in the crisis. Saraki wanted Obasanjo to pacify the APC leaders on his behalf. But Sunday Punch gathered that the former president’s intervention has failed to yield the results desired by Saraki and his camp.
It was gathered that shortly after Saraki’s visit to the former president, Obasanjo made a telephone call to Buhari advising him to make up with Saraki. The former president had reportedly told the president to work with Saraki and let the party deal with all the disciplinary issues that the former governor of Kwara State had been accused of. However, the President was said to have been non-committal.
While Buhari was careful not to make his disappointment with Saraki public, he was very angry that the senate president led a rebellion against his party and also teamed up with the PDP to undermine it. One other reason the crisis has remained intractable, the source added, was the emergence of Senator Ike Ekweremadu as the Deputy Senate President.
“The President believes that Saraki earned the support of the PDP because of the deputy senate presidency he conceded to the opposition party. It is a treacherous thing to do to one’s party,” the source said. (Punch).