The All Progressives Congress (APC) has warned its members who are government appointees, not to disrespect the National Assembly.
The development comes in the wake of the recent face-off between the Senate and the Comptroller-General of Customs, Hameed Ali, as well as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal.
The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, gave the warning over the weekend after a meeting of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC), with the APC caucus in the House of Representatives.
He said the ruling party did not interfere in the matter between Customs boss and the Senate, because it was not a party affair.
Abdullahi said: “Yes, you are right. The issue came up. The House of Representatives expressed these concerns.
“They believe that the party has being shielding some people from the Executive arm of government, who are also members of the party and that is why they are able to, in their own words, disrespect the National Assembly.
“Don’t forget that the meeting we had was with the House of Representatives and not the Senate. But I think they felt equally affected by what is going on with the individuals you have mentioned. But the assurance that we gave them is that the party will not do that.
“The party will not support any member, who is an appointed official of government to disrespect the National Assembly because we recognise that the National Assembly is the very meaning of our democracy.
“The difference between dictatorship and democracy is that you have a National Assembly. In military rule, you have the executive and the judiciary. The only institution you don’t have under military rule is the National Assembly or the House of Assembly in the state.
“So, that is the very foundation of our democracy and we believe as a party that every single citizen, regardless of what we feel about some actions or inactions of that institution or some individuals in that institution or the perception we have about some people in that institution, the most important thing is that it is the very institution at the heart of our democracy and any form of denigration of that institution is like flirting with suicide.
“So, as a political party, we are not going to do that. We are not going to support anybody to disrespect our National Assembly and I believe that some of these issues that are coming up will very soon be resolved.
“As you have learnt, the party said we are going to intervene on some of these issues and try to resolve them. I don’t think trying to intervene to resolve the issues should be interpreted to mean that we are protecting some of the individuals that are involved.
“We are not protecting anyone to disrespect the National Assembly. Our desire will be to see that there is stability in the system and the polity is not unnecessarily overheated by issues that can be resolved amicably.”
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