Outgoing President of the Nigerian Senate and chairman of the National Assembly, Dr. Bukola Saraki has started opening hitherto veiled can of worms on the clandestine plots of former Governor of Lagos State ahead of 2023 and leadership of the ninth National Assembly.
Responding in a press statement signed by his media aide, Saraki chided allegation by Bola Ahmed Tinubu that under his leadership of the senate, national budgets were delayed, distorted, padded, new projects introduced, funds for projects reduced, “to halt progress of government.”
Recall that Tinubu had earlier in a statement blamed the Kwara State-born British trained dentist that he had been the brain behind failures of APC led federal government since 2015.
However, Saraki fired back warning that “Tinubu should leave Dr. Saraki out of his schemes and manipulations towards 2023. It is obvious his arbitrary and tactless interference in the process for the emergence of the leadership of the Ninth Assembly is already falling through.
“The frustration from this experience might have been responsible for this needless and baseless outbursts. Our only advice for him is that if he is interested in the stability of the National Assembly, he should allow the members to elect their leadership in consultations with the party leadership.
“He should stop treating the legislators like hapless pupils receiving orders from a cane-wielding headmaster. A situation where he, Tinubu, is dictating to elected legislators and ordering them to either comply with his directives or get out of the party, will not augur well for the legislature in the next dispensation.
Saraki further told Tinubu that “History should have thought him that only a leadership that truly enjoys the support of members can help the President and his administration to achieve their objectives. It is a good development that the candidates for the various positions are already reaching out to their colleagues and forging alliances.
Continuing, the Senate President added that “We can see that after he realised that he has misfired, he is trying to retrace his step and in his usual devious manner, he is looking for scapegoats. We advise him to leave Dr. Saraki out of his manipulations and “jockeying and maneuvering for influence and power”, as he termed it.”
On how Tinubu will continue to be confused on the emergence of the 8th Senate, Saraki thundered that “Tinubu and his mob have been sponsoring the narratives in the media that the emergence of the present leadership of the National Assembly was a mistake.
“We hereby submit that Dr. Saraki and other leaders of the National Assembly were democratically elected by their colleagues. And it is because they are the choice of their colleagues that they have remained in office for the past 46 months, despite all the plots hatched by anti-democratic, reactionary and fascist elements pretending to be ‘progressives’.
“In fact, Tinubu should know that if there was any mistake made on June 9, 2015, it was the miscalculation by himself and his small cabal in the APC who felt they could decide for the senators-elect and House of Representatives members-elect.
“When they failed after their grand-standing that they could always got whatever they desired, they resorted to undermining the institution of the legislature and waging a campaign of calumny against the law making body. It is now clear that those who took senators away from the chambers contrary to the directive contained in the proclamation signed by President Muhammadu Buhari on June 9, 2015 are ‘mistake personified’, Saraki averred.
