The Senate President, Ahmed Lawal has warned against ignoring members of the opposition parties in the National Assembly as the new legislators-elect are preparing to assume duty in the next dispensation.
Answering questions from journalists at the Presidential villa, Abuja today, April 21, Senator Ahmed stressed that the APC majority members will need the minority to function effectively.
The Senate President stressed the need for cross fertilisation of ideas between the majority and minority for better result at the end of the day.
“We need to be on the same page, because we need opposition to ensure that we get most of our constitutional amendments passed when the time is right, because we can’t have the 73 in the Senate.
“We need 73 senators at least for us to have any constitutional amendment. So we will need opposition.
“That’s why it is very, very critical; it is very essential that we work with opposition right from the beginning. Don’t ever think the opposition should be pushed away. I believe in the very bipartisan chamber because it is more productive. It is more stable and calm, and it gives us the kind of outcome that we will never get with a very rancourous chamber. And I’ve seen it, we have done it.
Senator Lawal said that he did not think that opposition parties are planning to take over the leadership of the legislature, “because it is presumptuous that the APC as a United party will get the opposition parties to simply work with the APC majority for us to have stability. “There is no way an opposition will decide who should be the senate president; who should be the speaker. It is our party and other leaders that will decide which zone or whoever, and the rest of us in the party will key in and, of course, the opposition would have no option but to support.
The Senate President expressed confidence that the APC members and senators-elect will respect whatever the party and its leaders will eventually come up with. “We are praying that we are able to deal with it as decisively as possible, and then keep ourselves united and work together with other parties.
“We have been able to work together with other parties in the ninth assembly in a very bipartisan way, smoothly and seamlessly. And I believe that we can repeat that.
“And it is very, very essential that we have a very United National Assembly. And I’m very confident that we will do that.”
