The race to the 2019 presidential election is getting stiffer as Nigerian senate president; Bukola Saraki on Tuesday said he is considering running for the post of president come February 2019.
“I am consulting and actively considering it,” Saraki, said in an interview with Bloomberg at his residence in the capital, Abuja. “I believe I can make the change,” he said.
According to him, Investors and citizens have lost confidence in the president, “If a government can go and lock up an arm of government which has never happened in our history, we should all be very concerned,” Saraki said. “We should not be surprised that they would use security agencies for elections.”
The Senate president said that if he decided to run, it would be under the banner of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the main opposition group.
Saraki will be joining host of others in the opposition party including Aminu Tambuwal, Rabiu kwankwaso whose body languages have given sign of eyeing the ticket, and finally former Nigerian vice president Atiku Abubarkar who only has formally declared running for the post under the PDP.
He would however first need to win the party’s ticket during the October 6th party primaries.
“It has long been expected that Saraki would likely contest for presidency of which no one will be surprised if he eventually declares,” Rafiq Raji, Chief Economist at Macroafricaintel said on a phone response.
If he were to win, it might actually be positive for the country. Although he has to win first as no one is sure on who will eventually emerge as a preferred candidate for the party.
“He has a good shot at winning and perhaps securing the ticket of the PDP and if he does, he would do a good job in terms of investors in the country,” Raji said.
Over the past weeks, Saraki visited a one-time Nigerian Military president Ibrahim Babangida in Minna, he also had several closed door meetings with former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo. A move technocrats said was to justify his stance on whether or whether not to join the presidential race.
Since clinching the post as the senate president in 2015 against Buhari’s wishes, the Saraki led national assembly has always been at logger heads with the APC led executive.
His defection last month back to the PDP came amid a wave of such departures from the APC, including dozens of senators and at least two state governors. After security operatives surrounded Saraki’s home last month for undisclosed reasons, the secret police (DSS) temporarily blocked access to the National Assembly on Aug. 7, in what Saraki said was an assault to democracy
On investment, Saraki said most of the inflows that have come in are merely hot money, and that is because the oil price has gone up.
“Investment in the real sector is not seen he said. The private sector, in my view, has probably taken a position that the confidence is not there in the government. The country requires a government that is truly pro-business, and a president that sees himself as a chief marketing officer,” Saraki said.
Bearish investors sentiment continued yesterday with the Nigerian Stock Exchange All Share Index (NSE ASI) depreciating further by 0.62 percent to close at 35,069.34 points, compared with the 0.35 percent slide recorded yesterday.
On the other hand, the 30-Day and 180-Day NIBOR increased to 12.25 percent and 14.72 percent respectively while the 90-Day NIBOR decreased to 12.80 percent
The average yields in the treasury bills secondary market closed higher by an average of 5 basis points across most of the maturities traded in the Treasury Bills 2-way-quote market. Demand for Secondary Market Treasury Bills continued to shrink despite relative stability in the Money Market.
On the involvement of security forces in political matters, Saraki noted that “There has been a persistent disregard for due process and a lack of neutrality for some of these issues. For you to have credible elections, you must have safe elections. Security agencies are actively getting involved in the politics.”
“The fundamentals of whatever we are going to develop are going to be based on sound democracy, credible elections, freedom of choice of Nigerians. If we don’t have that as a foundation, then everything else cannot happen.”
On gasoline subsidies, Saraki said “If the country is going to have a subsidy, it should have a budget for it. Because once we have a budget for it, the private sector can also play a role in the importation of petroleum products.
“And if the private sector plays a role, definitely the cost of the subsidy will go down and there will be more efficiency in the delivery of products. But in the environment we are in today, where it’s only the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. that’s doing that, it’s going to be inefficient, it’s not going to be transparent.”
On the PDP, he said “The PDP has learnt its lesson from the loss in 2015, and I think unfortunately the APC did not learn from their victory.”
“While negotiating with the PDP “we listed a number of issues.
We talked about how to sustain and improve the fight against corruption; the issue of providing more powers to the states; inclusion and having a more nationalistic approach on things we do; to continue to improve the environment that will ensure investments.
“We listed a number of items during the discussions with the PDP, and there is a written agreement to that. We trust that we can hold them to that.”
“We would ensure that the party is strong on security. The APC too have not done well on the issue of security. We have the opportunity with the right kind of presidential candidate and president to provide the leadership for the party. The party has a good opportunity to lead the country in the right direction,” Saraki said.
Meanwhile members of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Electoral and Political Party Matters on Wednesday queried the sum of N28.6 billion proposed as honoraria for 2,763,990 Ad-hoc Staff during the 2019 general elections.
According to Mahmoud Yakubu, Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), from the total sum of N189.2 billion required to conduct the polls including: Presidential, National Assembly, Governorship and State House of Assembly elections, the sums of N134,427,868,157.50 is for election operational cost; N27,503,970,680 is for election technological cost; N22,660,887,887.50 is for election administrative cost while N4,614,818,168.13 is for miscellaneous expenses.
The lawmakers who observed that the 2019 elections budget rose by N69 billion above the N120 billion spent on the 2015 general elections, also demanded explanation for the N6 billion proposed for feeding of policemen.
Other controversial subheads identified in the documents obtained by BusinessDay include: N1.050 billion for CBN charges for storage and logistics including NAF charges; N7.995 billion for movement allowance for poll officials; N2 billion for election duty allowance; N972 million for production of election guidelines; N40.630 million for monitoring of training of Ad-hoc staff for regulatory compliance in the states and LGAs, N5.477 billion for hiring of vehicles for Ad-hoc staff as well as N1.867 billion for security at elections.
The lawmakers also observed that in the security component of the elections budget and the regular budget of the Nigeria Police Force, there was provision to cater for police welfare while on important assignments.
A member of the House noted, “When policemen are sent out on assignments such as elections, they are paid. There is a budget for them and we still have N6 billion here.
“Is this one a duplication? You have put another N7bn here again for security and procurement of security vehicles. Why?”
On his part, Jonathan Gaza another Representative, said: “Why did you provide about N700 million for international observers? We know that the European Union and the United Nations, they all make provisions for their independent observer missions. Is INEC going to pay them in 2019?”
In his response, the INEC chief explained that the Commission had so far registered 12.1 million new voters, in addition to the existing 70 million, bringing the total voter population to plan for in 2019 to 82.1 million.
He added that 91 political parties have so far been registered in 2019 with a longer ballot paper.
On the alleged duplications of subheads in the 2018 INEC budget, Mahmoud explained that the Commission had earlier informed the National Assembly that the 2019 elections budget would be separate from annual statutory budget.
He explained that INEC must still function as an agency and perform other routine duties like conducting new elections, bye-elections and pay staff salaries, which were the purpose for the 2018 budget.
According to him, the Commission conducted 10 elections between January to date: “ As we speak, the Osun State governorship election is next.
“Many of the bye-elections were as a result of deaths, which is something INEC could not control. Remember, by the provisions of our laws, there is a time frame for INEC to fill any vacant position. All of these activities consume money. They are separate from the 2019 general elections,” Mahmoud explained.
KEHINDE AKINTOLA, Abuja, & CYNTHIA IKWUETOGHU, MICHEAL ANI, Lagos
