For the first time, Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has echoed his mind on his ongoing trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, in Abuja, over allegation of false declaration of assets while he was the governor of Kwara State.
In his response to Dele Momodu’s article last Saturday on ThisDay, the number three citizen of Nigeria said one of his sins was because he opposed his party, the All Progressives Congress, APC’s Muslim/Muslim joint ticket in the April 2015 presidential election.
Saraki said, “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.”
He added that his colleagues know for sure that he is being victimised, which is why they have solidly stood behind him.
Hear him, “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.”
