To prevent more defections, Buhari holds crucial meetings with APC senators, governors.

To salvage what is left of its majority status in the National Assembly, President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday held marathon meetings with some senators and governors from his party.

Mr. Buhari is billed to embark on a 10-day vacation on Thursday, hence, a meeting with these two set of politicians to ensure more defections do not occur before his return.

Mr. Buhari’s fear of more defection flows from the series of crises rocking the party at different states.

As a consequence of these, over two scores senators and members of the House of Representatives, three governors, its National Publicity Secretary and several others dumped the party in the past two weeks amidst reports more defections are expected.

Despite the defections, the APC still has the majority at the Senate with 53 lawmakers against opposition PDP’s 50. This was the statistics until Tuesday when the Senate President, Bukola Saraki announced he is leaving the party. Mr. Saraki’s decision leaves the Senate presidency, its deputy in the hands of opposition.

At state level, governors of Benue, Kwara and Sokoto as well as the deputy governor of Kano all left the APC and joined the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Although APC still controls a majority at the House of Reps, the composition in the Senate, coupled with several in-fightings in states, is a huge source of concern for Mr Buhari.

MEETING WITH LAWMAKERS

First was the meeting with some senators and party leaders on Wednesday. The meeting took place inside the president’s office at Aso Rock Villa Abuja shortly after the meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

One of the lawmakers present at the meeting said the president was more concerned about addressing crises at the state level of the party.

“He just came to inform the people that he is going to travel and it was to send a clear message to the state governors that they must go and reconcile with their senators so that we don’t have more defections.

“There was a particular message to the governors who have cases in their states. Now it’s very clear that if the president doesn’t hold the ones on ground, they may end up wanting out. So, the meeting was called to send a clear message to them

The lawmaker said states like Zamfara, Adamawa, Niger, Oyo, Ogun, Kaduna and Imo topped agenda for discussion at the meeting.

Those states still have aggrieved federal lawmakers who could still defect.

Meanwhile, APC Chairman, Adams Oshiomole in his briefing after the meeting confirmed the defections were the major points of discussion at the meeting.

Courtesy: Premium Times