In saner societies, the public outcry would not have reached its present magnitude before he would have been forced to resign. But with Saraki’s tenacity, we are being portrayed as a country peopled and governed by greedy, selfish and desperate characters.
The latest disclosure by the embattled Senate president, Dr. Bukola Saraki that his current travail is a price he has to pay for opposing the Muslim-Muslim ticket when APC as the opposition party in 2015 was to decide its presidential/vice-presidential candidates sounds like a belated excuse. Assuming he had raised the allegation ab initio, probably he might have received greater public sympathy. The media boost given to the assertion notwithstanding, many Nigerian still find it difficult to believe his untoward accusations. It appears Saraki is employing every form of subterfuge to evade justice. From all indications, there is a clear disjunction between the cause of his problem and the reality of the ludicrous defence he is putting forward. As a renegade, he shouldn’t expect less from the party hierarchies anytime he reflects on the circumstances behind his emergence as Senate president. Hence, his counter-accusations seem tendetious or could be regarded as an afterthought.
He ought to have raised the accusation before the legal battle against him got to the current stage.
As much as one intends to give Senator Saraki the benefit of doubts, the multiplicity of the nature of the charges against him seems to be a constraint.
There was never a time in the annals of Nigeria when the misdemeanours of a Senate president would subject the whole Senate to ridicule as the situation currently does.
It has got to such a messy stage that people are now calling for the abolishment of the Senate as an institution. The people advocating the adoption of a unicameral legislative system for the country hinge their proposition on the ineffectiveness and wastefulness of the senators. In short, some of the antagonists of the current bicameral legislative system are of the opinion that the idea of reducing the cost of governance as a matter of imperative demands such an urgent action.
Whatever the intention of the embattled Senate president for his recent accusation, he is still going to be the loser at the end of the whole crisis.
In the current circumstance, Senator Saraki seems not to realise that he no longer enjoys public support and confidence, even though he holds tenaciously onto the Senate presidency despite the allegations against him. If care is not taken, the Eighth National Assembly as currently constituted and presided over by Bukola Saraki will be adjudged as the worst in the history of this country.
Since the inauguration of the Eighth National Assembly, the Senate has not been able to settle down to discharging it’s legislative duties owing to the discontent which the emergence of Bukola Saraki as senate president last year has caused among members of the Chamber.
Essentially, what Saraki requires for now is to be courageous and ready to bear the consequences of his past unethical deals. If he had known that he would need to seek for equity, one day, he ought not to have soiled his hands with dirty deals. Clearly, the embattled Senate president needs more than raising a counter-accusation to be exonerated of corrupt charges which are currently threatening his position as Senate president.
The unfolding drama during the proceedings of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) is not only proof that the Senate president is desperate to obstruct the course of justice, it also exposes his idiosyncratic tendencies as far beyond what his counter accusations could leverage. He should have seen the handwriting on the wall that with the Panama leaks and the damning revelations at the CCT, it will take only divine intervention for him to escape conviction.
With the unfolding scenario at the sittings of the CCT, Saraki does not need a soothsayer to know that the voices calling for his resignation outweigh those of his sympathisers.
Given the number of legal hurdles he needs to scale within his current travail, there is reasonable ground for anyone to conclude that Saraki’s chance of survival is lean. It is against this background that I support the call for resignation of Senator Bukola Saraki as Senate president to restore public confidence in the integrity of the Senate. If the Senate president remains adamant, the public expectation is that the distinguished senators would not shirk their fiduciary responsibility to commence his impeachment process.
In saner societies, the public outcry would not have reached its present magnitude before he would have been forced to resign. But with Saraki’s tenacity, we are being portrayed as a country peopled and governed by greedy, selfish and desperate characters.
Rahaman Onike, author, public administrator and policy analyst, writes from Oyo, Oyo State.
