Embattled Nigerian Senate President
Bukola Saraki has chosen to bring the hush-hush of APC politics to the open. In
his response letter to Ovation publisher Dele Momodu, Mr Saraki has made
several scintillating revelations as unspoken reasons for his persecution by the
leadership of his party APC, a key reason being his opposition of a planned
Muslim running mate for President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2015 elections.
Along with other arguments of his’,
one of which is the fact that the same judge who is overseeing his current
trial at the Code of Conducts Bureau had some years ago tried the present APC
leader Bola Tinubu and had acquitted him, a trial the judge today refers to as
an error of his, these scintillating revelations carve an ugly dent in the
APC-led federal government’s much touted anti-corruption war.
Here;
My dear brother Dele, let me thank
you most sincerely for your article last weekend, “My Candid Letter to Saraki.”
I take everything you said in that article to heart and I must commend you for
your candidness indeed and the sincerity of your intentions.
As you said in your article, you are
someone I have known more by reputation than by any personal relationship,
until recently when we struck up some personal acquaintance based on our shared
political interests, especially during the last presidential election. However,
I understand why you had to sound so defensive for knowing me at all and had to
publicly map the boundaries of our relationship. We have got to that point in
our country when we no longer believe that anyone could stand for anything
based on principles and convictions alone. Moreover, in the growing culture of
media crucifixion and presumed guilt; it is rare to find a voice like yours
that calls for fairness and justice.
I would have simply sent you a text
message or call you up for your candid advice to me, which I take seriously.
But I feel the need to make some clarifications on some of the issues you
raised. One of them was that in seeking to be Senate President, I struck a deal
with the PDP and made it possible for one of them to be the Deputy Senate
President. I know this is the dominant narrative out there, but it is far from
the truth.
I did not do any deal with the PDP.
I did not have to because even before the PDP Senators as a group took the
decision to support my candidature on the eve of the inauguration of the 8th
Senate, 22 PDP Senators had already written a letter supporting me. What I did
not envisage was a situation where some members of my party would not be in the
chambers that day, especially when the clerk had already received a
proclamation from the President authorizing the inauguration of the Senate.
Pray, if a team refused to turn up for a scheduled match and was consequently
walked over, would it be fair to blame the team that turned up and claimed
victory? I believe those that made it possible for PDP to claim the DSP
position were those who decided to hold a meeting with APC senators elsewhere
at the time they ought to be in the chambers. What the PDP Senators did was to
take advantage of their numerical strength at the material time. They simply
lined up behind Senator Ike Ekweremadu while those of us from APC voted for
Senator Ali Ndume. It was a game of numbers, and we were hopelessly
outnumbered. If the PDP had nominated their own candidate for the Senate
Presidency position that day, they would have won. It was as simple as that.
Secondly, I don’t know if you were
aware that in the build up to Senate inauguration, the National Working
Committee of the APC sent two signals. The first signal specified how
leadership positions in the National Assembly have been zoned. While we were
trying to give effect to this decision, the second signal came, which contained
names of people to which these zoned position had been allocated. What was not acknowledged
was that the President of the Senate is not an executive president. He is
primarily one of 109 senators. Therefore, I cannot decide by myself who gets
what in the Senate. Therefore, when they said I defied party directive in the
choice of principal officers, they are invariably ascribing to me the power
that I did not have.
My dear brother, most people talk
about the Senate Presidency position, but this was not my only offence. I have
also been accused of helping to frustrate some people’s opportunity to emerge
as President Muhammadu Buhari’s running mate. But I have no problem with
anybody. My concern was that it would not be politically smart of us to run
with a Muslim-Muslim ticket. I doubt if we would have won the election if we
had done this, especially after the PDP had successfully framed us a Muslim
party. I felt we were no longer in 1993. Perhaps, more than ever before,
Nigerians are more sensitive to issues of religious balancing. This, my
brother, was my original sin. What they say to themselves, among other things,
was that if he could conspire against our ambition, then he must not realize
his own ambition as well. For me however, I have no regrets about this. I only
stood for what I believed was in the best interest of the party and in the best
interest of Nigeria.
Now to the substantive issue of my
trial. As you rightly noted, this trial is not about corruption. And I am happy
that since my trial started, people who have followed the proceedings have now
understood better what the whole thing is about. I have had opportunity to
declare my assets four times since 2003. Over those years, the Code of Conduct
Bureau had examined my claims. There was no time that they raised any issues
with me on any item contained in my declarations over those twelve years. This
is why you should be surprised that while I am being tried by the Code of
Conduct Tribunal, the witness and the evidence supplied against me were all
from EFCC.
Like you, I have an abiding faith in
the judiciary. May God forbid the day that we would give up on our judicial
system. However, the onus is not on me to prove that I have confidence in the
judiciary; the burden is on my prosecutors to prove to the world that justice
is done in my case. If the process of fighting corruption is itself corrupt,
then whatever victory is recorded would remain tainted and puerile!
Some people have wondered, why has
Saraki been “jumping” from one court to another instead of facing his trial? To
those people, I would say that I have only gone to those courts in search of
justice. Strange things have happened, and they are still happening. For
example, Section 3(d) of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act states
that the Bureau shall refer any breach or non-compliance to the Tribunal.
However, where the person concerned makes a written admission of the breach, no
reference to the Tribunal shall be necessary. It was on this basis that the
case against Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was dismissed in 2011, by this same judge in
this same Tribunal on the grounds that he was not given an opportunity to deny
or admit to any breach before he was brought before the tribunal. This was the
ruling that I relied on in making my case. But what did the judge say? That he
had judged in error in 2011 and he had since realized his error and departed
from it. My question is whether a Tribunal of first instance has the power to
reverse itself. I should expect that everyone would be worried if justice is
applied differently to different people. However, in spite of my fears, I
remain hopeful. Why? Because the judiciary does not end with this Tribunal.
Do you know the genesis of my real
problems with President Goodluck Jonathan? I have had a touchy relationship
with him, but the turning point was in September 2011 when I moved a motion on
the floor of the Senate that exposed the N2.3 trillion fuel subsidy racket. I
remain proud that I was the Senator that blew the lid on the most elaborate
corruption scheme ever in this country. But after that I became a marked man. My
security was withdrawn. I was invited and re-invited by the EFCC and the
Special Fraud Unit. I was even declared wanted at a point. I believe I am still
one of the most investigated former governors in this country. I have no doubt
that if the Jonathan government was able to find anything against me, they
would not have allowed me to go unpunished.
Let me make this point clearly. I do
not expect to be shielded from prosecution because of my contribution to APC,
if there was genuine basis for such action to be taken against me. But I have
every reason to expect not to be persecuted by the party that I contributed so
much to build. The New PDP may not have given APC victory in 2015, but it was
an important factor in the dynamics that produced that victory. And with all
sense of modesty, I was an important factor in the formation of New PDP; in
leading that group to the APC; in ensuring our group’s support for the
candidate during the primaries and in mobilizing substantial resources for the
election. For these, I have not expected any special compensation. Rather, I
only expect to be treated like every loyal party member and accorded the right
to freely aspire!
Some people have complained that I
have been taking Senators with me to my trial. But I did not force them to
follow me. The Senators have freely accompanied me to the Tribunal not because
they are loyal to me as Abubakar Bukola Saraki, but because they are committed
to the principle that produced me as the President of the Senate. The same
principle that produced Ike Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President and produced
Ali Ndume as Majority Leader. They see all of us in the Senate leadership as
manifestation of their jealously guarded right to freely choose their own
leaders. Because they know they made us their leaders without any external
interference; they are confident that they retain the power to remove us
whenever they so wish. They also know what this trial is all about. They
believe I am being victimized because they have expressed their right to choose
their own leadership. This is why I am not in any way perturbed by my absence
in the chambers during this trial. Because I was not imposed on the Senate, I
feel confident that the Senate will protect its own choice whether I am present
or not. It is never about me. It is about the independence of the legislature.
It has always been so since 1999. It is so today and it would be so in 2019, it
would be so in 2023, and as long as we practice a democracy that operates on
the principle of separation of powers.
My dear brother, let me end by
observing that I am not alone in this trial. On trial with me in this process
is the entire judicial system. On trial with me are our entire anti-corruption
institutions and our avowed commitment to honestly fight corruption. On trial
with me is our party’s promise to depart from the ways of the past, a promise
that Nigerians voted for. And I dare say, on trial with me is our media; and
their ethical commitment to report fairly and objectively. In the end, it is my
earnest hope that whatever we do will ultimately ennoble our country.
– Dr. Saraki is President of the
Senate, Federal Republic of Nigeria
Reported by Uduak Umo
