Defection: Dogara, Lasun absent as Reps caucus meets APC leaders

…Reps disagree with automatic ticket
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Yakubu Dogara, and his Deputy, Hon Yusuf Suleiman Lasun, were conspicuously absent at the meeting on Thursday between the National Leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC), led by the National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole,

and party members of the House of Representatives led by the Majority Leader of the House, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila, with the lawmakers objecting to the idea of automatic tickets as a panacea to the gale of defections in the party.

Both Oshiomhole and Gbajabiamila took this position during the meeting at the National Secretariat of the party in Abuja.

The APC National Chairman said the party under him will not succumb to offering automatic tickets particularly to legislators as a bait to retain them even when they are not performing to the expectations of their constituents.

He said APC under him would run as an ideological party which believes in more development rather than serving as a mere platform for winning elections as those people who left the party think.

He said: “Somebody asked me are we not countering the PDP by offering automatic tickets? I said did we offer anybody departure ticket? If we did not, then how does the issue of return ticket arise?

“We just need to ensure every legislator who has value, who is at home with his people, that legislator is of value to the party and the party will do all to retain such; our party must consciously work to produce seasoned senators. We will get there. I want to assure you that it can’t be argued that experience can be discarded”.

On his part, the Leader and APC Caucus Chairman in the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, said: “The word automatic itself kills the party because the party is for everybody; hence automatic ticket is not ideal. If you are talking about internal democracy as that is why people left, if you left and got automatic ticket, what happened to the internal democracy that you are talking about that you cannot find in your party?

“There is a difference between establishment ticket and automatic ticket. You can achieve the same thing in a different ways instead of killing your party and telling everybody go away we have given our ticket to somebody else”.

The House Leader, who earlier announced that APC has a new member in the Green Chamber from Social Democratic Party, Ekiti State, Olamide Oni, said: “It is a time to consolidate and make sure we stay in touch with our members and keep them close, continue to appreciate them.

timers who have acquired experienced to become ranking members and have represented the party at the grassroots level, should be taken into serious consideration and I think they deserve a term.

If they don’t come back, we are going to lose the first six months to one year training the freshers and how does that help the party and the country?

Speaking on Dogara’s absence, Gbajabiamila told journalists that he is aware but added; “perhaps he has other engagement because it was a meeting fixed in the last few hours and for somebody like the Speaker, you should know he has a lot of engagements. The Deputy Speaker is aware also. I am here standing in for him”, he added.