Saraki, Dogara meet Buhari on ‘national interest matters’

By Abdullahi M. Gulloma
Abuja

Senate President Bukola Saraki and the Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, have disclosed that they visited President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday, to discuss matters of “national interest.”
The leaders of the National Assembly met with the president behind close-doors for 40 minutes.
Saraki told State House correspondents that the president “engaged them very well.”

He said they specifically “came to discuss issues and activities of the National Assembly during the absence of the president.”
Saraki said the meeting centred on the “budget, the economy, CBN, Euro bond, the issue of the ambassadorial list, the stability in the Niger Delta, and a whole range of issues.”
According to him, the Senate has a target to pass the 2017 budget this month.

On his perception of the president’s state of health, the Senate President said Buhari met with them for 40 minutes, adding that “I was not talking to myself. He is doing very well; we discussed issues of national interest.”
On his part, Dogara said they were not at the Villa to assess the president’s health.

He said the journalists who were always there surely knew the president was doing well.
On the relationship between the executive and legislature, Dogara said it was not in the place of the legislature to fight the executive.
“We fight on issues, but mostly issues of national interest. We fight on behalf of the people for the purpose of progress.
“There is one government and no division. If he fails, we all fail, so it is in realisation of this that we always extend the needed support to ensure that he succeeds, so that the government will be rated as a success,” he said.

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