For Senate President Bukola Saraki and his colleague, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, it’s another return to the trenches of political entanglement.
Adamu, a former governor of Nasarawa State, had once quarreled with the Saraki loyalists in the National Assembly, as he remains an unwavering supporter of President Muhammadu Buhari. This led to the sack of Adamu as leader of the northern senators’ forum.
Saraki has benefited more than any single new PDP person and he seems to be the arrowhead of this resistance now or betrayal of the party that elected him to the National Assembly. I thank God I have lived to witness what I said come to pass
This time round, the two politicians are on collision course over the formation of Reformed All Progressives Congress, a splinter group from the ruling All Progressives Congress.
As the RAPC is busy leading some heavyweights out of the APC, the camp of President Muhammadu Buhari, which Adamu is believed to be leading in the Senate, is distraught.
Adamu, last week, alleged that the group was being secretly sponsored by Saraki, adding that the Senate President should earnestly leave the APC, rather than playing a waiting game.
”I told you here that the so called nPDP is fake. I told you that. I told you these are people who have got felonies that they are hiding and want to use their positions in the party and National Assembly as a facade, as a veil to hide from the felonies they have committed and the whole thing they are fighting is not so much service to Nigeria but service to their interests and I did tell you that they are just staying in the APC to cause maximum possible damage.
“Saraki has benefited more than any single new PDP person and he seems to be the arrowhead of this resistance now or betrayal of the party that elected him to the National Assembly. I thank God I have lived to witness what I said come to pass. It is left for you now to follow up to know who was telling the truth or lying.
“They did not deserve the attention they wanted because it was not founded on realism, it was not founded on truth, loyalty or patriotism to the country. The truth is, if Saraki and the rest of them, leaders, today in the National Assembly genuinely feel aggrieved and genuinely want to go out, let them go out.
“You don’t push pawns. Nobody who knows the game of chess, wins only by moving pawns; you have got to move the major actors, the king, the knights, the bishops but these ones have got the feet of clay. Unfortunately they don’t threaten anybody here and as far as I am concerned, we don’t see them as reformed APCs; I think they are rejects.
“Why do I say so? We are witnesses to the fact that we held a national convention. We started from the unit level, that is where the ballot boxes are; to wards, local governments, zonal levels and to the national level and we had a convention. There was no snide statement from anybody. Three weeks after the convention, we started hearing some riff-raffs saying that they had formed something called rAPC.
“You don’t just wake up and form a party or coalition. What is happening is that those their principals who are in the National Assembly do not want to risk making a declaration so that they do not lose their seats and so they want to justify that there is a split in the APC. That is what they are trying to do. No more, no less. In my place, they say before you see a monkey, the monkey has already seen you, because it stays on the tree top.
Adamu added, “I think without being immodest, I have seen enough Nigerian politics thus far and from what we have seen so far, the indication is that we are dealing with ‘419ners’.
Saraki’s aide: Senator Adamu only said his view, and I don’t think that has anything to do with the Senate President. The Senate President remains committed to this party and nothing can change that. Adamu’s insinuation must have been from certain grievance which is known to him
But in a swift reaction, the Special Adviser on New Media to the President of the Senate, Mr. Olu Onemola, said the insinuation by Senator Adamu was a personal view which had nothing to do with the Senate President”. He added that the Saraki remained a committed member of the party, adding that the former Senate Majority Leader must have had some ulterior motive.
“Senator Adamu only said his view, and I don’t think that has anything to do with the Senate President. The Senate President remains committed to this party and nothing can change that. Adamu’s insinuation must have been from certain grievance which is known to him.”
Onomela also urged Nigerians not to also link Saraki with the decision of his Chief of Staff, Akeem Baba-Ahmed, who recently dumped the
APC.
For the rebarbative effects of the pull-out of the rAPC from the main APC, however, the last is yet to be heard.
