Again, let us remind ourselves how we got to this sorry pass. For ease of administration, the framers of our constitution expect the ruling party with a majority to produce the Senate President and deputy. But Saraki after cutting a deal which ceded the deputy senate presidency to the opposition, capitalized on the absence of 51 of his elected APC colleagues to be adopted Senate President by 49 PDP senators and eight APC senators. Itse Sagay described Saraki’s coup as ‘a victory for impunity, a victory for fraud and a victory for political desperation and indiscipline”, while Auwalu Yadudu, former Dean of a Faculty of Law, Bayero University Kano dismissed it as ‘lies in the face of democratic ideals’ since Saraki’s emergence stemmed from ‘a flawed election by a fraction of yet-to-be-constituted Senate.
With the unwavering support of 51 betrayed APC senators, this column had suggested APC should wield the big stick by disowning Saraki for his perfidy. But the party decided to play the ostrich and by default gave Saraki time to cut further deals with some marketable commodities driven only by greed in the Senate. With power of patronage obtained albeit immorally, Saraki soon had 82 ‘like minds senators’ who shared his world-view in his pocket. But last week, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, the National Chairman of APC was reported to have foreclosed the possibility of the party losing the senate presidency to the opposition but was also quick to add ‘sometimes, for change to take place, there is price you have to pay. So losing the position may be sacrifice for change.” Unfortunately what Oyegun is now trying to do is locking the stable door long after the horse had escaped. The party lost the control of the Senate the moment Saraki, the veteran dealer sold the deputy senate seat to the opposition.
APC decided to play the ostrich long after Saraki, who was haunted out of PDP over haggling over sharing of loot (He was the whistle blower in the N1.6trillion fuel scam involving some PDP leading lights and their children who in turn identified a company in which Saraki had an interest as beneficiary) had made a choice of returning to his vomit. It was obvious to discerning Nigerians except APC leadership that Saraki’s strategy was to adorn APC toga of change while working feverishly to undermine the party’s anti-corruption war with the connivance of defeated PDP national wreckers. Had APC wielded the big stick, Saraki would have been fighting his current battle with CCT not as the third most powerful figure in APC government but as part of discredited PDP that looted Nigeria through NNPC, PPPRA, privatization and monetization policies. Saraki would have been in the midst of his unpatriotic PDP members who shared $2.1 loan meant to buy arms to fight insurgency that has killed over 18,000 innocent Nigerians and rendered about two million others refugees in their own country.
APC is therefore responsible for the nation’s current nightmare. Most Nigerians knew a Saraki/Ekweremadu Senate as an offshoot of David Mark/Ekweremadu Senate that looked the other way while their PDP members stole the country blind would continue business as usual. Predictably, the Senate remains a senate of shame while the House remains house of deals. An institution whose essence besides making laws, and amending budget or repealing public policy is to guarantee freedom and prevent tyranny is intolerant of dissent even among its ranks. While Saraki supporters insist the call on him to account for deals he made some 12 years earlier is an attack on the Senate as an institution, Marafa who disagreed claiming “What is happening in the CCT is personal to Saraki and has nothing to do with his position as the Senate President’ was recommended for suspension Senator Anyawu-led committee.
The 2016 Budget was submitted to the House in December last year, Audu Ogbeh, the agriculture minister and his team early this week discovered 386 “strange” projects worth N12.6billion reportedly inserted by the National Assembly in the ministry’s budget proposals. That was not before the House had reduced ministry’s budget proposals fromN40, 918 billion to N31.618 billion to accommodate their own constituency projects which for years served only as conduit pipes. The Minister of Transport raised an alarm about the cancellation of the Lagos – Calabar rail project. We now know it was partly to accommodate Dogara’s N3b constituency projects as well Abdulmumin Jibrin, Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation’s constituency projects such as provision of tricycles, town halls, classrooms, solar street lights, and pedestrian bridges. This is the mindset of those who adopt ethnic balancing to impoverish the north by pretending to fight for the north. This was what informed Nuhu Ribadu’s (former EFCC chairman) sad conclusion that ‘the 19 northern state governors and the 414 local governments have nothing to show for the N8.3 trillion that accrued to them between 1999 and 2010.’
Sadly in both Houses controlled by APC, it is business as usual. Ex-governors as senators are drawing N1.2m pension along with their undisclosed huge salaries that rank as one of the highest in the world and greedy lawmakers after obtaining car loans, went ahead in spite of Buhari’s call for caution to buy 108 exotic cars at a cost of N35.1m a unit at a time about 25 states of the federation cannot pay the minimum wage of N18, 000. In return for their pains, we have a National Grazing Reserve Bill which will establish a National Grazing Reserve Commission (NGRC) using federal government fund to acquire farm lands from the 36 states of the federation for private cattle farmers, perhaps as compensation for the killing of thousands of innocent Nigerian farmers by Fulani herdsmen already declared by the UN as one of the deadliest terrorist groups in the world with nothing being said about their victims; the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petition headed by an Anyawu, notorious only for following Saraki to Code of Conduct Tribunal, summoning the chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, Danladi Umar who had just ruled that Saraki’s trial for alleged falsification of assets will run on daily basis, over a petition against his assistant. And there is also an on-going self-serving attempt by the two houses to amend the Code of Conduct Bureau Tribunal Act and Administration of Criminal Justice Act, all aimed at sabotaging President Buhari’s anti-corruption war.
But Nigerians who performed their own patriotic duty of voting out inept and corrupt PDP government are holding Buhari and APC responsible for their nightmare. If Saraki had been disowned after demonstrating he cannot be a trusted ally in the battle for change, disillusioned Nigerians would have been reassured that the current raging battle is between forces of darkness that shared our national patrimony and mortgaged the future of our children and forces of light trying to usher in the much desired change. But APC cannot afford to fail those who have internalized its message of hope. The party must reinvent itself by publicly disowning Saraki and his fellow travellers in the Senate of shame and in the House of deals. Impoverished Nigerian victims of PDP’s 16 years crime against our nation are tenaciously holding on to Jega’s Permanent Voters Cards, (PVC), and a veritable weapon against greedy and self-serving corrupt politicians.
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