Controversy rages over APC’s directive

There were  controversies  on Sunday over a directive by the All Progressives Congress to its National Assembly members  to block   the passage of all  legislative bills, including the 2014 budget  estimates.

The party, after its Interim National Executive Council meeting in Abuja on Thursday, said its lawmakers needed  to do so until constitutionalism was restored to Rivers State in particular and the nation in general.

The party had blamed the Presidency and the Peoples Democratic Party for allegedly fuelling the crisis in Rivers State and using government  machinery like the police to hound the opposition.

 But on Sunday the PDP caucus in the House dismissed  the directive as impossibility.

The caucus observed that there was a difference between national interest and “party and personal interest, which the APC is pursuing.”

The Deputy Majority Leader of the House, Mr. Leo Ogor, told The PUNCH in Abuja that it would not serve the interest of the electorate in  APC-controlled states that national projects should be stopped because a political party said so.

Ogor  said,  “The directive is totally impossible; we are waiting for them to see how they will do it.

“Take the case of the budget for instance. There are projects sited in states like Lagos, Kano, Rivers states and so on.

“Are you saying these projects should be stopped? Are you saying civil servants should not be paid salaries?

“Besides, the APC members swore to an oath of allegiance to defend the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

 A  member of the PDP  Senate caucus also  said the APC was day-dreaming since it  was not in control of the  majority in the National Assembly.

 The APC controls 172 out of the 360 members of the House  while the PDP has 171. The remaining 17 members belong to other political parties.

 

In the Senate, the PDP has  72 senators, APC, 33 and other parties, 4.

  Also,    Labour Party lawmakers in both chambers of the National Assembly   described as “absurd and highest level of irresponsibility,”  the directive  by the APC.