17 days after his election, Senator Bukola Saraki,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 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
