The National Assembly leadership, yesterday, denied meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan last Wednesday night on the 2010 Electoral Act which the Senate passed on Thursday. Senate’s spokesman Senator Ayogu Eze (PDP, Enugu North) said, “I am not aware of any meeting between the National Assembly and the president. That is totally fallacious and I think the report was just an imagination of the person who wrote it.”

On his part, Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Media and Public Affairs Rep. Eseme Eyiboh (PDP, Akwa Ibom) said, “I am the official spokesman of the House. I am being copied every communication between the House and the Executive but there was never a meeting like that. That meeting never happened and we also read the report as everybody did.”

However, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives Rep Mohammed Ali Ndume (ANPP, Borno) confirmed to Daily Trust over the telephone yesterday that he did receive an invitation for a meeting with the president slated for Wednesday by 8:30pm at the Presidential Villa but did not attend because he was in Maiduguri.

The Senate had on Thursday last week altered the draft bill recommended to it by its ad-hoc committee on the review of the 1999 constitution led by the Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu by re-arranging the order of the 2011 election and putting the presidential election first.
News reports (not in Daily Trust) say the leadership of the National Assembly met with the President Wednesday night at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, during which the president guaranteed the lawmakers their automatic tickets in exchange for alteration to the draft bill.