A national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has said party discipline would be upheld over the leadership tussle of the 9th national assembly.
Speaking with journalists on Friday, Tinubu said the party’s choice must be respected and whoever is against such should leave.
Tinubu also warned against what the APC suffered in 2015 when some of its lawmakers connived with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which was the minority, and elected those against the party’s choice as principal officers.
The ruling party is expected to produce the next principal officers after emerging majority in both chambers of the national assembly; it has 25 seats more than the PDP in the senate and is clearly ahead of PDP by 100 seats in the house of representatives.
The APC leadership has already endorsed Ahmad Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila as their preferred candidates for senate president and speaker respectively.
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Tinubu said: “We were a little careless in 2015. We created the opportunity for serpent to get into our party and that did not allow Nigeria to make the desired progress.
“You have seen the result of it and we are not going to allow that to happen again. We are going to respect our party and we are going to apply the whip.
“It is either you stay with us or you follow us or you leave. You have the freedom to choose but the freedom does not give you as a minority to go and collaborate and protrude our mandate given to you to another party who was our opposition and who is still our opposition.
“We would not take that this time, no matter who you think you are. That is how it is built. Why do you want to deviate from what has been structured? We look at our reward system equally, zone by zone.”