Ganduje cautions Plateau APC lawmakers-elect against violence

From Cyril Mbah, Abuja.

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje has appealed to the sixteen elected members of the Plateau State House of Assembly who were excluded from participating in legislative proceedings not to resort to violence over their exclusion from the assembly or while  pressing for the actualization of their mandate.

Ganduje made the appeal on Tuesday when the members visited the APC National Secretariat to canvass for the party’s intervention in restoring them to office.

The APC national chairman, after listening to the list of complaints, advised the angry legislators-elect to be patient and calm down while allowing the party to pursue justice for them using the legal and other conflict resolution channels aleady being engaged.

Ganduje said: “We are worried about the situation in Plateau, Kano and Delta where our elected members have not been sworn into office but we urge you to remain calm and await the outcome of our intervention.

“We must bear with the Judiciary but we are doing everything necessary to ensure that our elected members, who have received their certificate of return are sworn into office in the shortest time. You should exercise more patience and follow the legal way with faith and hope.

“The President is also worried about the situation but as a ruling party, we are interested in peace not only in Plateau but across the entire federation,” he said.

Earlier the spokesman of the sixteen lawmaker designates, Professor Theodore Bala Maiyaki (SAN) told the APC national chairman that they have run out of patience after staying at home for about six months after their election.

The APC legislators-elect later addressed the media where they called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to use his fatherly position and resolve the Plateau problem with the hope of solving the impasse before serious damage results from the refusal of the Plateau speaker to swear them into office.

“We call on the President, the Plateau State Governor, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Inspector General of Police to order the insidious and recalcitrant speaker of the Plateau House of Assembly to promptly reconvene the Plateau House of Assembly to inaugurate and swear us into office as legitimate members of the state house of Assembly.

“We also call on the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and all lovers of democracy to bring pressure on the speaker to swear us into office without further delay,” the aggrieved politicians said.