Northern Reps threaten Jonathan over ministers

The same security reports, it was gathered, named some groups in the House that had been going around to recruit members to buy into the plot to destabilise the leadership.

Sundry allegations on disrespect to colleagues and favouritism were levelled against the Dimeji Bankole-led leadership.

But at the meeting, which lasted for about four hours and attended by House principal officers from the North, with the exception of the Deputy Speaker, Bayero Nafada, deliberated on the security reports and agreed that there was no need to sack the cabinet put together by President Yar’Adua who had been away from the country for 86 days.

“We can’t reverse what we’ve done. We look at all the issues holistically and we agreed that we made mistake, but it was intentionally done to defend our democracy. We all believed that we breached the Constitution, but if Goodluck Jonathan makes moves to dissolve the cabinet, we will surely move against him and it will start from the House, this is part of our resolution,” the source said.

According to the ranking member from the North West zone, more meetings of the caucus had been lined up to keep abreast of political developments and respond accordingly. He said a meeting will hold today in one the residences of the leaders, adding that of new members in the House even blamed the old ones for not calling such meetings earlier.

“Let me reveal to you that we are meeting again tomorrow [Thursday], we want to get ourselves ready, we have been caught unawares, but next time, we will not. We will meet to strategise. We will meet to protect the interest of our people.

“For anything coming, we will look at it critically, we will examine it, we will look at what is good for the North and if there is nothing to take back home to our people, you can be rest assured that we will oppose it. The North will not accept it and the whole North will rise against it,” the member vowed.

The caucus exonerated Bankole from all allegations raised against him by some groups within the House, whose members contacted some caucus to rattle the house leadership. “We will not be allowed to be used to destabilise the House. This caucus was briefed about some moves made to remove the Speaker. We will not be a party to such plot,” he stated.

At the meeting, contact groups were named to open discussion with the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party [PDP] and All Nigeria Peoples party [ANPP] on how to strengthen the position of the North in the political terrain and defend the regional interest.

The kitchen cabinet of President Yar’Adua was blamed for mishandling the issue of the president’s health, which led to political logjam and the emergence of Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President.