On Wednesday, August 15, 2018 when the news broke that Bukola Saraki, president of the Senate, may have given an indication that he was considering seeking the nomination of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to contest the presidential election fixed for February 2019, many observers gave divergent opinions.
An online medium had quoted the Senate president as saying: “I am consulting and actively considering it.” According to him, “I believe I can make the change.”
In the last two weeks since Saraki announced his defection from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to the PDP, he has been in the eye of the storm. The leadership of the APC, headed by Adams Oshiomhole, has consistently insisted that the Senate president must either resign, or be impeached.
Although going by the 1999 Constitution (as amended) which stipulates that a Senate president can only be removed by the two-thirds of the total number of members which the APC cannot muster, given the present composition of the Senate, Oshiomhole, up till last Tuesday, insisted that Saraki must be impeached.
The rumour of his ambition had continued to swell, particularly after he dumped the APC for the PDP. Last Monday, Saraki had paid a private visit to former President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abeokuta, ostensibly to seek his buy-in to his aspiration. A few days before he visited Obasanjo, he had also consulted with a former military President, Ibrahim Babangida in Minna, Niger State.
Since Saraki’s movement back to the PDP, the umbrella party has been assailed by internal bickering and allegation of undue favoritism.
Ahmed Makarfi, a former governor of Kaduna State and one of the presidential aspirants on the PDP, platform is embittered about the back-and-forth movements of the likes of Saraki, who have unfortunately returned to the PDP to seek nomination as the party’s presidential candidate.
Makarfi, who was a former national chairman of the PDP, said: “For some politicians, at the slightest provocation they will just jump to another party. Any little issue they will run away and a little while when they are not comfortable they will come back. But we must be careful so that we don’t create the impression that it does not pay to be loyal or committed because it would discourage people from doing so and that will destroy the party.”
“Everything must be balanced in such a way that we take care of the loyal and dedicated party men. We must not create a situation where you have a home and a visitor comes and you give him guest room to stay and the next day he wants the master bedroom and the next day he wants you to leave your home for him. Does that happen in any society? No, PDP must never allow that kind of thing to happen,” Makarfi warned.
By the same token, Godswill Akpabio, a former minority leader in the Senate, who recently dumped the PDP for APC, blamed his defection on poor treatment meted out to some of the loyal members of the party.
Alleging that the PDP does not have a good reward system for steadfast members, Akpabio said: “My colleague, the Senate president who unfortunately was one of those who joined to destroy the PDP in 2015 just attended the NEC meeting and out of excitement, the same national chairman rolled out the drums and announced him National Leader of the party.”
According to him: “Having been the Senate minority leader, and by implication the chairman of the PDP caucus in the National Assembly, I thought there was no more room for me, since we now have a National Leader who has just defected.”
Saraki had also given an indication that he must have reached an agreement with the leadership of the PDP on a number of things, saying: “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,” he was quoted to have said.
Now, the question many observers are asking is: “How morally correct would it be for PDP to handover to Saraki its flag for 2019 presidential election?”
A party member, who spoke with BusinessDay on condition of anonymity said: “There is no doubt that Bukola Saraki is a master strategist when it comes to politics. But I am not very sure that he is the best presidential candidate for PDP at this point in time.”
The PDP member further said: “Saraki has too many battles and it would be detrimental for the PDP to say to him, ‘come represent our party for 2019’. That would mean open preparation for defeat. Truth be told, I have not seen any presidential material among the lot other than the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. I do not know the man one-on-one; but I must say right away that if our great party PDP wants to be seen to be in the race at all, it must consider fielding Atiku Abubakar.
“Do you know why? I think it is only Atiku that can match the APC candidate by all standards. If it is money, he has it; if it is connections, he has it; if it is experience, he has; if it is building bridges across the country, Atiku has it. There is no other aspirant, of all those that have declared interest, that parades all these attributes, rolled into one.”
The party man further explained that any attempt by the PDP to give Saraki the ticket may lead to serious crisis that may ultimately consume the PDP.
“Already temper is running high in the party, among some aspirants who believe they may have been sidelined by the leadership of the PDP in favour of the new comers. If for instance, someone like Saraki emerges, it would create a serious crisis that may lead to the extinction of the party. By the way, I do not think that the Senate President has all it takes to win votes across the six geo-political zones of the country. I do not know how popular he is in the zones other than Kwara State,” he said.
Abimbola Agboola, a Lagos-based political affairs analyst, expressed concern that the PDP appears not to have learnt its lesson and is taking steps that are not altogether healthy for the expected victory in 2019.
“Honestly, I thought by now, the PDP would have learnt its lessons after going through a lot of crisis which led to its disastrous defeat in 2015. For me, there is no point encouraging everybody to join the race as presidential aspirant. It would have reduced its chances of running into crisis by not making bogus promises.
“I understand that these promises were made to woo membership, particularly the big fish. But I thought that it would serve the party better if the aspirants can go for a consensus candidate. There are many of them on the list that I am convinced cannot win a presidential election in the country, at least for now. I wonder why everybody is coming out, and some of them are making some utterances that are laced with innuendoes, which convey the message that they are not ready to work together,” Agboola said.
Some observers suggested that the best bet for the Senate president should have been for him to go back to the Senate.
“Honestly, I think that the best option for Bukola Saraki, if you asked me, would have been for him to go back to the Senate. By the time he spends another four years there, he would have garnered more experience, and also by that time, the crisis around him would have been a thing of the past. You know, in this country, our sense of history is very infinitesimal. Then, he could come up for the presidency. But now, I don’t think, honestly, it would come out fine,” Fred Alumona, an IT expert, said.
Zebulon Agomuo
