Senate President,Senator Bukola Saraki, just 17 days after his victory as senate president,finally opened up
yesterday on the controversial poll, saying those against him planned to abduct
him to prevent him from emerging as Senate President.
Saraki disclosed that, on Tuesday, June 9, Senate
inauguration day, following information he got of the abduction plot to keep
him off the National Assembly, he altered his schedule by arriving the
parliament car park at 6am, stayed in his car and then trekked at quarter to
10am into the chamber.
He denied the rumour that for him to win, he entered into a
pact with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Senator Ike Ekweremadu to be
produced as his deputy, just as he stressed that the absence of All
Progressives Congress, APC, senators in the chamber paved the way for the
emergence of Ekweremadu.
The Senate President, who noted that the emergence of
Ekweremadu will make things difficult for him, said, “Never in our wildest
imagination did we envisage that some senators would not be present on the day
of the inauguration.
Speaking with journalists, in Abuja, Saraki insisted that he
never got any message to attend a meeting at the International Conference
Centre (ICC) with President Muhammadu Buhari on the Senate inauguration day.
“First of all, as regards the meeting (at ICC), on the
morning of the inauguration, I didn’t finish at a meeting until 4:00am of that
day and I had got information that efforts would likely be made to make sure
that I didn’t get access into the chamber”, he said.
“So, as early as 4:00am and 5:00am, I had made contingency
plans that I must get into the National Assembly because the plan before was
that senators-elect should go to Transcorp Hilton Hotel around 8:00clock and
9:00am to proceed to the National Assembly.
“But I was advised that it would not be safe or it would not
be secure for me to do that because if some people made sure I didn’t get into
the chamber, it would not be possible for me to be nominated, for the
nomination to be seconded and for me to accept the nomination.
“I can tell you today that I was in the National Assembly
Complex as early as 6:00 in the morning and I stayed in a car in the car park
till quarter to 10:00am. That is the truth. I stayed there and I was there with
no communication whatsoever.
“So, anybody who said he spoke to me to go to the ICC was
not being truthful because I didn’t even know what was going on. All I was
monitoring was how people were arriving the complex.
“It was just before 10:00 that I got information that the
Clerk to the National Assembly had entered the chamber. So, I got out of the
small car I was inside, stretched myself and put on my Babariga because I
didn’t have it on before then.
“I walked from the car park into the chamber. That was why
some of you would have seen that I looked very tired that morning.
“Even when I was in the chamber, I didn’t know what had
transpired earlier. The only thing I observed was that it appeared that some of
our senators were not in the chamber, but because the fact that my colleagues
arrived in batches, I had the opinion that they were on the way and, by
10:00am, the programme started.
“Before I knew it, my election had come and gone. Even my
people were worried; it was only when I got into the chamber that they were
relieved.
In regards to the emergence of Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate
President, Saraki said
“In my own view, and, in the view of some of those who
worked closely with me, I worked hard for my election. I had direct contact
with every single senator, one on one; weeks leading to the election, I did not
rely on anybody.
I worked hard; both in our party, the APC and out of it.
I worked hard; both in our party, the APC and out of it.
“I approached every senator, I talked to them, we built
confidence, not only in the APC, but, also, in the PDP. I talked to them. That
was why I laughed when people said I had a deal with Ekweremadu or I had a hand
in the emergence of Ekweremadu.
“I didn’t need any deal to win. I had penetrated, there was
no deal; I didn’t need any deal in the first place. I had worked hard such that
everybody who was a Senator, I campaigned hard and canvassed for their votes
and won their confidence.
“At one of the meetings held at Transcorp Hilton which
Senator Godswill Akpabio co-chaired with Senator Ibrahim Gobir and a few
others, which had both APC and PDP members, if you heard most of them there,
the position they took was that ‘this is the Senate President they want.
“Across party lines, that day they believed in me and that
this is the Senate President that can lead us, there was no deal.
“Sometimes, I wonder how some of our colleagues found
themselves at the ICC. If it had been a case that the Clerk of the National
Assembly had made an announcement and the event had been postponed or it was no
longer holding, plus, the invitation, I’m sure some are asking now, what really
happened?
“First of all, the PDP senators had announced to the public
that they were supporting me without even meeting me because, in their own
meeting, majority had decided to vote for me.
“In their own interest, strategically, they decided that,
`look, this is a fait accompli’ because 30 of their own senators were going to
vote for this man anyway and the remaining felt it was better to join.
“It wasn’t until 2:00am that they called us to tell us their
decision . With regards to the deputy, when they told us that they had a
candidate, we, too, told them we had a candidate for Deputy Senate President in
the person of Senator Ali Ndume!
“After our own meeting, it was our thinking that it was after
the election of the Senate President that the two groups in APC would meet and
we would agree on a candidate. We never in our imagination thought they would
not turn up. By the time we got there, we were only 24 while the PDP was more than 40.
“In an election, there’s no way they would not have defeated
us and that was what happened? And now, when people say it was a deal, I say
that if the CNA had started the procedure in the House of Representatives
first, and moved to the Senate, thereafter, today, we, the APC, would have had
a deputy Senate President.”
“It is unfortunate that we have a PDP man as deputy Senate
President. It is painful. It is painful for every APC member because when we
went through the struggle, that was not what we signed for. But it has
happened; but it is unfortunate and it is not fair to put the blame on one side
because it is a combination of errors and miscalculations that led us to have,
that morning, some Senators were at another place instead of being there.
“So, to suggest that it was out of a desperate act to
emerge, is what I reject completely and those who followed the events would
know that I didn’t have that deal to emerge.”
When asked to speak on his rumoured ambition for 2019
presidency, Saraki said that the country is currently going through a lot right
and he isn't bothered about 2019, adding that those talking about the election
at the moment could be described as irresponsible.
Vanguard
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