I Regret Convening Meeting Same Day Saraki Became Senate President - APC Chairman

The APC National Chairman Chief John Odigie-Oyegun has bared his mind on what he considers to be one of his worst political moves as leader of the ruling party.
He disclosed what he called a “bad mistake” in a recent interview, stating that his decision to call a meeting of the Federal lawmakers elected on the platform of his party on the day the eight National Assembly was inaugurated was a terrible mistake.

He admitted that if he had not listened to the advice of those who persuaded him to do so, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) wouldn’t have produced the Deputy Senate President.

According to Oyegun,

“There are lots of decisions, not just one, some of which are private. If you want to limit it to the recent past, I would say the decision to call the meeting that took place on the day the National Assembly was inaugurated. That was a bad mistake.”

“I was persuaded and I agreed to call that meeting. Had it been it did not take place, we probably won’t have a PDP person there today as the deputy Senate president. The anger within the leadership of the party may not have turned out as strong as it became.”

It would be recalled that following the inability of the APC lawmakers to come up with a consensus candidate to lead them at the inauguration of the National Assembly, the APC National Chairman and the party leadership had reportedly scheduled a meeting with the lawmakers for 9am same day of inauguration.

However, before APC Senators, who are in the majority, could return from the meeting which took place at the International Conference Centre in Abuja, their PDP colleagues helped to install Saraki as the Senate President, electing one of their own, Ike Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate .

The two lawmakers have since then been fending off various forms of political onslaughts; from the Code of Conduct Tribunal case to the recent suit filed against Ekweremadu and Saraki accusing them of forgery.