- Says It’s Suicidal To Threaten N’Assembly Leadership
The Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, on Tuesday has bemoaned the role of the press in the regular face-off often recorded between the executive and legislative arms of government in the country, The New Diplomat reports.
Osinbajo stated that it would be suicidal to threaten the leadership of the National Assembly, made up of the President of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki and the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara.
Speaking while declaring open the 16th Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth, CSPOC, in Abuja, Osinbajo said considering their physical size, he can’t threaten them.
Insisting that the two arms of government have worked harmoniously in the past two years, Osinbajo maintained that Nigerian media were only interested in the disagreements between them.
He said, “On a lighter note, I don’t know the experiences of presiding officers from other nations present here on the relationship between the Executive and the Legislature by the press and the social media.
“Here in Nigeria, what makes news is conflict between the Executive and the Legislature. The more dramatic it is, the more newsworthy it becomes.
“If you follow things in the media, you’ll be confronted by the exclusive and breaking news stories, reporting several different issues of conflicts between the Executive and the Legislature.
“I’ll pick just one. There’s one of our popular newspapers that had the caption: ‘Acting President threatens leadership of the National Assembly.’
“Now, if you see the combined sizes of the Senate President and the Right Honourable Speaker compared to mine, it’ll be suicidal to threaten either of them, let alone the two of them.”
