The Personal Assistant on Social Media to the President, Lauretta Onochie, has insisted that President Muhammadu Buhari will not take any drastic measures against the National Assembly.
In a statement on Facebook, Onochie said Buhari would not behave like former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan amid the face-off between the executive and the legislature.
She said: “I understand when well-meaning Nigerians call on President Buhari to ‘descend’ on the National Assembly, the Senate in particular. After all, that’s what Presidents Jonathan and Obasanjo did.
“With all due respect, it would appear, and was very clear, even to the blind that what Nigeria had under President Obasanjo was democracy tinged with autocratic tendencies.
“President Buhari is a man of honour. He has vowed to give Nigerians a democratic leadership and he will not be pressured into breaking that vow.”
Onochie said Nigerians should descend on the Senate, instead of asking the President to do so.
“This idea of wanting our President to break constitutional provisions that recognise separation of powers is nothing but a total cop out on the side of Nigerians. We must have democracy in a democratic setting.
“Nigerians did it in January of 2012. That was when we recovered the executive arm of our government. The elections of 2015 merely confirmed that Nigerians actually recovered their government.”
Buhari on Wednesday, set up a committee, whose objective is to resolve the perennial rift between the executive and the legislature.
The committee will be chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
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