Nigeria's senate president Dr. Bukola Saraki and the clerk of the National Assembly snubbed president Muhammadu Buhari's directive to withhold inauguration of the 8th national assembly, presidential spokesman Shehu Garba said on a Channels programme on Wednesday morning.    

He explained that Buhari declined to meet the 51 APC lawmakers at the International Conference Centre because election had already been completed by lawmakers who stayed back at the National Assembly complex.

“..Saraki directly or indirectly, the clerk of the National Assembly was reached directly or indirectly and they would have shown that respect to Mr. President, but the process went ahead. And that is it.

“I am talking about the clerk, governor saraki, the key characters in all of these had sufficient information directly or indirectly coming to them that the President will be meeting the party members and the party chairman was present on the ground. Assumption would have been that every loyal and committed party member would have presented themselves to the party and to their President. That did not happen yesterday (Tuesday).

“I mean the information had been made available to people who would have decide this process. A respect for the President even if and for him to have made this point, even the outcome would have been the same. They chose to be absent. They chose to respect their party and the President. 51 APC Senators decided to answer the call of the party and the President and were present to this meeting. It was not as if it was a secret meeting.

“The party had begun a process and concluded it and some of these actors were part of that process. They knew what had happened. There was a shadow election of some sort. It is clear that there was nothing accidental in all of these things that happened. The process I meant, what I meant is that the APC as a party had began a process for choosing leaders. There was a shadow election in which leaders were chosen on the platform of the political party and it was complete. There was no doubt about it.