My dear brother Dele, let me thank you most sincerely for your article
last weekend, “My Candid Letter to Saraki.” I take everything you said in that
article to heart and I
must commend you for your candidness indeed and the
sincerity of your intentions.
As you said in your article, you are someone I
have known more by reputation than by any personal relationship, until recently
when we struck up some personal acquaintance based on our shared political
interests, especially during the last presidential election.
However, I understand why you had to sound so defensive for knowing me at
all and had to publicly map the boundaries of our relationship. We have got to
that point in our country when we no longer believe that anyone could stand for
anything based on principles and convictions alone. Moreover, in the growing
culture of media crucifixion and presumed guilt; it is rare to find a voice
like yours that calls for fairness and justice. I would have simply sent you a
text message or call you up for your candid advice to me, which I take
seriously.
But I feel the need to make some clarifications on some of the
issues you raised. One of them was that in seeking to be Senate President, I
struck a deal with the PDP and made it possible for one of them to be the
Deputy Senate President.
I know this is the dominant narrative out there, but
it is far from the truth. I did not do any deal with the PDP. I did not have to
because even before the PDP Senators as a group took the decision to support my
candidature on the eve of the inauguration of the 8th Senate, 22 PDP Senators
had already written a letter supporting me.
What I did not envisage was a
situation where some members of my party would not be in the chambers that day,
especially when the clerk had already received a proclamation from the
President authorizing the inauguration of the Senate. Pray, if a team refused
to turn up for a scheduled match and was consequently walked over, would it be
fair to blame the team that turned up and claimed victory?
I believe those that
made it possible for PDP to claim the DSP position were those who decided to
hold a meeting with APC senators elsewhere at the time they ought to be in the
chambers. What the PDP Senators did was to take advantage of their numerical
strength at the material time. They simply lined up behind Senator Ike
Ikweremadu while those of us from APC voted for Senator Ali Ndume. It was a
game of numbers, and we were hopelessly outnumbered. If the PDP had nominated
their own candidate for the Senate Presidency position that day, they would
have won. It was as simple as that. Secondly, I don’t know if you were aware
that in the build up to Senate inauguration, the National Working Committee of
the APC sent two signals.
The first signal specified how leadership positions
in the National Assembly have been zoned. While we were trying to give effect
to this decision, the second signal came, which contained names of people to
which these zoned position had been allocated. What was not acknowledged was
that the President of the Senate is not an executive president. He is primarily
one of 109 senators. Therefore, I cannot decide by myself who gets what in the
Senate.
Therefore, when they said I defied party directive in the choice of
principal officers, they are invariably ascribing to me the power that I did
not have. My dear brother, most people talk about the Senate Presidency
position, but this was not my only offence. 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.
Now to the substantive issue of my trial. As you rightly
noted, this trial is not about corruption. And I am happy that since my trial
started, people who have followed the proceedings have now understood better
what the whole thing is about. I have had opportunity to declare my assets four
times since 2003.
Over those years, the Code of Conduct Bureau had examined my
claims.
There was no time that they raised any issues with me on any item
contained in my declarations over those twelve years. This is why you should be
surprised that while I am being tried by the Code of Conduct Tribunal, the
witness and the evidence supplied against me were all from EFCC. Like you, I
have an abiding faith in the judiciary. May God forbid the day that we would
give up on our judicial system.
However, the onus is not on me to prove that I
have confidence in the judiciary; the burden is on my prosecutors to prove to
the world that justice is done in my case. If the process of fighting
corruption is itself corrupt, then whatever victory is recorded would remain
tainted and puerile! Some people have wondered, why has Saraki been “jumping”
from one court to another instead of facing his trial?
To those people, I would
say that I have only gone to those courts in search of justice. Strange things
have happened, and they are still happening. For example, Section 3(d) of the
Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act states that the Bureau shall refer any
breach or non-compliance to the Tribunal. However, where the person concerned
makes a written admission of the breach, no reference to the Tribunal shall be
necessary.
It was on this basis that the case against Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was
dismissed in 2011, by this same judge in this same Tribunal on the grounds that
he was not given an opportunity to deny or admit to any breach before he was
brought before the tribunal.
This was the ruling that I relied on in making my
case. But what did the judge say? That he had judged in error in 2011 and he
had since realized his error and departed from it.
My question is whether a
Tribunal of first instance has the power to reverse itself. I should expect
that everyone would be worried if justice is applied differently to different
people. However, in spite of my fears, I remain hopeful.
Why? Because the
judiciary does not end with this Tribunal. Do you know the genesis of my real
problems with President Goodluck Jonathan? I have had a touchy relationship
with him, but the turning point was in September 2011 when I moved a motion on
the floor of the Senate that exposed the N2.3 trillion fuel subsidy racket. I
remain proud that I was the Senator that blew the lid on the most elaborate
corruption scheme ever in this country.
But after that I became a marked man.
My security was withdrawn. I was invited and re-invited by the EFCC and the
Special Fraud Unit.
I was even declared wanted at a point. I believe I am still
one of the most investigated former governors in this country. I have no doubt
that if the Jonathan government was able to find anything against me, they
would not have allowed me to go unpunished. Let me make this point clearly.
I
do not expect to be shielded from prosecution because of my contribution to
APC, if there was genuine basis for such action to be taken against me. But I
have every reason to expect not to be persecuted by the party that I
contributed so much to build.
The New PDP may not have given APC victory in
2015, but it was an important factor in the dynamics that produced that
victory. And with all sense of modesty, I was an important factor in the
formation of New PDP; in leading that group to the APC; in ensuring our group’s
support for the candidate during the primaries and in mobilizing substantial
resources for the election.
For these, I have not expected any special
compensation. Rather, I only expect to be treated like every loyal party member
and accorded the right to freely aspire! Some people have complained that I
have been taken 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. It is never about me. It is about the independence of the legislature.
It has always been so since 1999.
It is so today and it would be so in 2019, it
would be so in 2023, and as long as we practice a democracy that operates on
the principle of separation of powers. My dear brother, let me end by observing
that I am not alone in this trial.
On trial with me in this process is the
entire judicial system.
On trial with me is our entire anti-corruption
institutions and our avowed commitment to honestly fight corruption. On trial
with me is our party’s promise to depart from the ways of the past, a promise
that Nigerians voted for.
And I dare say, on trial with me is our media and their
ethical commitment to report fairly and objectively. In the end, it is my
earnest hope that whatever we do will ultimately ennoble our country. By Bukola
Saraki
Dr. Saraki is President of the
Senate, Federal Republic of Nigeria
*vanguardngr*
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