What Buhari, NASS must do to engender harmony —Rep

A member of the House of Representatives, Honourable Israel Famurewa, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari, should have shown interest in the leadership of the National Assembly during the contest for principal offices at the commencement of the 8th Assembly.

The lawmaker also said the problem facing the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was as a result of too much emphasis on winning the 2015 elections without looking at how key positions would be shared among stakeholders.

The lawmaker, who spoke with newsmen in Abuja, said the interest of the president in the choice of the principal officers would not be to manipulate the process but to guarantee intra-party harmony.

“I think Mr President got it wrong from day one, for him to have not really shown interest in the leadership of the 8th Assembly. That doesn’t mean you want to lord your opinion on them. He was at least supposed to show interest in it. Those are the little problems we had at the formative part of the party,” Famurewa said.

He said that, apart from the President coming to the National Assembly for budget presentation, he did not think “we really have the kind of rapport that is supposed to be between the APC members in the National Assembly both the House and the Senate and the executive, and even the political party.

“The way I know things in-house, in the past, the party would have regular meetings with elected government officials both from the executive and the parliament. For example, this issue of borrowing plan, this was supposed to have come up before now. We are supposed to have discussed it at a caucus level.

“The Senate President is a member of the APC; the President, who brought the proposal is also a member of the APC. They are supposed to have sat on a table and say ‘okay, Mr. Senate President. This is what we are bringing, what’s your opinion’?”

“The Senate President must have one or two inputs into that to say ‘okay, Mr President, don’t put it this way, put it this way,’ and that would have encouraged the Senate President to go to the parliament and do some underground work more-so that the party is the majority. But because they don’t have such a rapport, that’s one of the problems that’s just reflecting,” he stated.