By Rotimi Ajayi

ABUJA – The Presidency was said to have invited the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Tambuwal to Saturday meeting between the Federal Government and labour leaders in order to get the Speaker to prevail on labour to accept the Federal Government position on the fuel subsidy.

A very close source to the meeting held late Saturday night revealed that Tambuwal was initially excluded from the meeting invitation until about 7.00pm.

According to the source, the invitation of the Speaker to the meeting was said to have been on the advice of the former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Tony Anenih.

It was learnt that Chief Anenih had been meeting regularly with the Speaker since Sunday, January 8 when the Speaker summoned an emergency special session of the House where it was resolved that the Presidency should revert to N65 a litre in order to facilitate new negotiations.

The source added that Presidency officials and party leaders had continued to put pressure on the Speaker to cause the House leadership to issue a statement siding with the Presidency on the subsidy policy.
The pressure on him has been enormous. Chief Tony Anenih has come to this House not less than three times between last Sunday and last night. The problem is that they feel the Speaker is such a man who will support injustice. He is such a principled man and he will not back out on the resolution of the general house.

Initially he had been left out of the meeting of last Saturday until the last minute when he was called to be part of it  so that he could help persuade labour on the subsidy,@ said the source.

Meanwhile, some members of the President=s cabinet were said to have been contacting some major political leaders in the country to assist in mediating between the Federal Government and labour.

The Ministers who are mostly from the Northern part of the country were said to be worried about the drift of the crisis as both parties become rigid about their positions