A recovered Rivers State Government owned luxury bus stolen by unknown persons. It was recovered in Obio/Akpor LGA

President Muhammadu Buhari has congratulated Senator Bukola Saraki and Hon Yakubu Dogara for emerging Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives as he inaugurated the 8th National Assembly, yesterday.
In a statement yesterday, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, said that although the President would have rather preferred that the process of electing the leaders followed that initiated and concluded by the All Progressives Congress (APC), but added that the outcome of the process shows that they were the choice of the members of the National Assembly.
Adesina, who posted the statement in a series of twitter via his twitter handle @FemAdesina, yesterday, added that: “nonetheless the President took the view that a constitutional process has somewhat occurred.
“President Buhari had said in an earlier statement that he did not have any preferred candidate for the Senate and the House of Representatives, and that he was willing to work with whoever the lawmakers elected,” Adesina said.
“That sentiment still stands. Though, he would have preferred the new leaders to have emerged through the process established by the party,” he stressed.
Adesina stressed that the stability of our constitutional order and overall interest of the common man were uppermost on the President’s mind, as far as the National Assembly elections were concerned.
The President called on all the elected representatives of the people to focus on the enormous task of bringing enduring positive change to the lives of Nigerians.
But the APC disagrees with Buhari on the emergence of Bukola Saraki as Senate President and Yakubu Dogara as Speaker of House of Representatives, saying that the development was unacceptable.
The sharp disagreement emerged yesterday following a statement by the party saying it has nothing to do with the new leadership of both Senate and the House of Representatives.
While Buhari has expressed his readiness to work with the elected Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, APC declared their emergence unacceptable and vowed to discipline its members involved in the process.
In a statement entitled “Emergence of Saraki, Dogara as Senate President, House Speaker unacceptable to APC”, the party described as totally unacceptable and the highest level of indiscipline and treachery the emergence of Senator Bukola Saraki and Hon Yakubu Dogara as Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, respectively.
“The party is supreme and its interest is superior to that of its individual members,” the party said in the statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in Abuja.
“Senator Bukola and Hon. Dogara are not the candidates of the APC and a majority of its National Assembly members-elect for the positions of Senate President and House Speaker. The party duly met and conducted a straw poll and clear candidates emerged for the posts of Senate
President, Deputy Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, supported by a majority of all senators-elect and members-elect of the House of Representatives. All National Assembly members-elect who emerged on the platform of the party are bound by that decision.
“Consequently, the APC leadership is meeting in a bid to reestablish discipline in the party and to mete out the necessary sanctions to all those involved in what is nothing but a monumental act of indiscipline and betrayal to subject the party to ridicule and create obstacles for the new administration,” it said.
APC decried “a situation in which some people, based on nothing but inordinate ambition and lack of discipline and loyalty, will enter into an unholy alliance with the very same people whom the party and indeed the entire country worked hard to replace and sell out the hard won victory of the party.
“There can be no higher level of treachery, disloyalty and insincerity within any party,” the ruling party said, vowing to resolve the matter using all constitutional and legal means available to it.
APC, however, asked all its loyal senators-elect “to please report to the Senate to be sworn-in in order to discharge their constitutional duties.”
Earlier, President Muhammadu Buhari had shunned the International Conference Center for the meeting slated to broker peace among the factions in the leadership tussle of the 8th National Assembly, yesterday.
It was gathered that the meeting which was to hold by 9am at the International Conference Centre (ICC), Abuja, was to be presided over by President Buhari who was to address the disagreement among some APC Senators over the Senate Presidency’s position.
A mild drama, however, ensued at the venue of the meeting as some lawmakers who were waiting for the President became agitated and confused when information got to them that Saraki had emerged the Senate President.
Saraki was elected Senate President even while some of his colleagues were still waiting to have a meeting with President Buhari.
The members-elect, while waiting for the arrival of the President, started discussing in one of the meeting rooms in the conference center while journalists were barred from knowing what was going on.
After waiting for about two hours, the lawmakers, most of them members of the House of Representatives stormed out of the conference center with the realisation that the situation at the Senate had happened behind them, and quickly headed to the National Assembly.
APC lawmakers-elect and some chieftains of the party had converged for the meeting.
Present at the ICC meeting were some APC governors, chieftains of the party and former Governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu. The Spokesman of the party, Lai Mohammed, arrived several hours later.
In a swift reaction to the development, the party chairman and some members of the APC who spoke to newsmen later said that they were studying the situation and would react at the right time.