A source at the Presidency has told SaharaReporters that Senator Bukola
Saraki misled President Muhammad Buhari into believing that he was
welcome to help broker a solution to a crisis rocking the All
Progressives Congress (APC) over the choice of the party’s candidates
for top legislative posts in the National Assembly, including President
of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives.
The APC had
chosen Ahmed Ibrahim Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila as their candidates for
the Senate Presidency and Speaker slots respectively.
But in
a stunning development, Mr. Saraki was elected as
President of the Senate after garnering the block support of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) and some APC senators who broke rank with their
party.
In a similar vein, PDP members of the House of Representatives
threw their block votes behind Yakubu Dogara, selecting him as Speaker
over the APC-endorsed Gbajabiamila.
Our Presidency source accused
Mr. Saraki, who had earlier shunned a meeting with Vice Present Yemi
Osibanjo, of inviting President Buhari to intervene in the widening
internal schism within the APC. In refusing to attend an earlier peace
meeting with the vice president, Mr. Saraki had reportedly fumed that he
could not be summoned to a meeting by a mere commissioner, a comment he
later denied making.
Soon after Mr. Buhari arrived in Abuja
early on Tuesday, he invited all APC legislators to a meeting with him
at the International Conference Center at 9 a.m. “Senator Saraki assured
the president that he would attend the meeting,” said our source.
According
to the source, Mr. Saraki instead “held a marathon meeting with members
of the People Democratic Party to cement their support for him.”
The
Ahmed Lawan faction of the APC awoke to news of the PDP’s endorsement
of Mr. Saraki. Even so, they still headed for the 9 a.m. meeting called
by President Buhari. They were waiting for the presidential parley when
Senator Saraki and some other “rebel” senators of the APC moved into the
National Assembly complex, where the police had thrown a cordon to
prevent workers and reporters from entering, for the “election” of
principal officers.
While lawmakers loyal to Mr. Lawan and Mr.
Gbajabiamila waited for President Buhari to arrive, word reached the
president that Mr. Saraki had been elected as Senate President.
“Mr.
President felt deceived by Dr. Bukola Saraki. That’s why he did not
bother to attend the [APC legislative] meeting he called.
Mr.
Saraki and his cohorts also ignored the protocol for the president’s
formal proclamation for the inauguration of the National Assembly, a
source close to Saraki said they relied on a letter written by Buhari
asking them to be inaugurated. Instead, 57 senators loyal to Mr. Saraki,
most of them PDP members, unanimously “elected” Mr. Saraki after he was
nominated by Senators Dino Melaye and Sanni Yerima. The rebelling APC
Senators worked overnight to produced new rules for the elections with
the help of outgoing Senate President, David Mark. Mr. Mark was later
elected as “Senate Majority Leader”.
Mr. Saraki was quickly
sworn-in as the new Senate President even as his APC colleagues were at
the ICC waiting for Mr. Buhari to address them.
Two APC lawmakers
loyal to Senator Lawan and Mr. Gbajabiamila told SaharaReporters that
they had hoped to move to the National Assembly for a real election
after the “peace meeting” with President Buhari. The two lawmakers said
they were dismayed to receive text messages reporting that Mr. Saraki
had been elected.
PDP governors from Rivers, Ondo and several other leaders of the party witnessed the election and swearing in of Saraki today.
