Oyegun, Aregbesola Meet Dogara, Lasun Over House of Reps Leadership Crisis

APC

Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yusuf Lasun may resign his position following alleged pressure from his State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, with the hope that the action would bring peace back to the lower chamber of the National Assembly.

The possibility was believed to have been discussed at a closed-door meeting of the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Oyegun with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola and Lasun at the APC national secretariat, yesterday.

Dogara and Lasun Yusuf had won the House leadership election upon the inauguration of the 8th National Assembly despite the endorsement of the candidacy of Hon. Femi Gabajabiamila and Hon. Mohammed Mongunu for the positions following a party mock election. The two party favourites also tried to get placement in principal offices of the House; they have also failed in this. The development has affected the smooth running of the House which has been forced to adjourn twice. To ensure the drama that has so far been witnessed in House proceedings does not remain when the lawmakers resume on July 28 to conclude the leadership elections, the party leadership has moved to settle the scores.

Efforts to have Dogara relinquish his seat by different interest groups have yielded no fruit. Attention was said to have, therefore, been shifted to Lasun, which made the APC leadership involve his state governor to prevail on him.

If Lasun resigns, it will be as a show of loyalty to the national leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who had apparently been perturbed by the emergence of Doagra and Lasun against Gbajabiamila and Monguno who were “his candidates”.

Following the meeting, Aregbesola, Dogara and Lasun declined comments.

The national chairman who spoke later said the leadership of the House was summoned to the secretariat as part of the ongoing efforts to restore peace before the resumption of the national assembly on Tuesday.

According to him, the party summoned the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Deputy Speaker and other APC governors from the South-west, but only Aregbesola showed up for the meeting out of the governors.

Asked to confirm whether or not the party has asked Lasun to step down as part of the new peace deal, both Oyegun and the media aide to Lasun, Mr. Wole Oladimeji, denied knowledge of that.

“No, the party has not said such thing, we only called a meeting with the Speaker, his deputy and South-west governors so as to try and sort out the outstanding issues in the House of Representatives. We are still holding consultations and hopefully there will be a breakthrough soon,” Oyegun said.

“It is not true that the deputy speaker is being pressured to resign. Why would he resign? He was duly elected,” Oladimeji said.

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