For Bukola Saraki, the embattled Senate President, it never rains but<\/p>\n
pours. He has enjoyed a permanently stormy tenure since he went at his
\nparty’s back and conspired and traded with the opposition PDP to steal and
\nshare the Senate leadership. He must be terribly disappointed that what he
\nhoped for was not what he got. He must be distressed that what he felt was
\na brilliant coup has turned out to be his albatross. He must be surprised
\nthat his plan to ride roughshod over his party and secure immunity for
\nhimself through the Senate leadership is bouncing so hard on his head. He
\nis dejected. He is distraught. He is perplexed.He is confused. He is crest
\nfallen. Quite a pity. Saraki is facing the other side of raw, naked
\nambition even when he is dragging a mountain load of indiscretions which
\nare now hunting for his head. He must have read badly of the disposition
\nof his party and indeed the country, to put up with his conspiracy and
\neven by the more annoying petulance he showed with his handling of the
\nparty’s leadership position in the house and sharing of committee
\npositions.<\/p>\n
Saraki’s experience since he emerged as Senate President has been
\nunenvious. It is difficult to guess if he has had one minute to savour the
\nvictory he scored over his party since he emerged as Senate President. He
\nhad been shuttling between his hallowed seat and the mean dock. He has
\nbeen mauled even in his native Ilorin and had been caricatured as a poster
\nboy of filth and scum. He has been running from pillar to post, trying to
\nstave off the cup that awaiteth him as the Code of Conduct Tribunal
\nproceeds with his corruption trial. He had engaged in endless procurement
\nof alibis to state that his trial was because he emerged as Senate
\nPresident. He has been blaming forces which he has been cowardly to name,
\nas being behind his travails. He has embarked in endless judicial window
\nshopping, going round the courts in endless circles, to procure reprieve
\nfor himself but the noose tightens harder with each attempt. First, he
\ntried to bluff his way through the Tribunal’s summons but when he was
\nstarkly faced with humiliating arrest, he had to buckle and devour the
\nhumble pie to enter the dock, and he has been in the dock since then.<\/p>\n
In recent times, we have heard his acolytes like Baraje and Timi Frank
\nrail bitterly that his acclaimed party, APC is watching gleefully as he
\nsurely marches to the guillotine. Sure? I wonder if they believe APC
\nshould stick its neck to save Saraki with the way he betrayed and
\nridiculed the party. I wonder if these fellows believe that APC should
\nwarmly embrace Saraki after he conspired with PDP to rob the party of its
\nrightful positions and has thereafter gone to constitute opposition to his
\nparty’s policies; more as a trading ware to free himself from the mounting
\nweight of indiscretions against him. Do Saraki’s cronies feel that APC
\nwill block Saraki’s trial after he had shown that he is a black sheep that
\ncan trade with the devil to achieve his selfish desires? Saraki’s trade
\npartners in PDP have even weighed in with the cheap blackmail that they
\nwill seize the Senate President should Saraki fall, as he is surely
\ndestined to. As hollow as that blackmail was, these traders of fortune
\nwould have been sorely battered by the APC Chairman, John Oyegun’s calling
\noff their bluff by insisting that if the APC has to lose the Senate
\nPresidency for not saving Saraki from corruption trial, so be it.<\/p>\n
On the day Saraki abd PDP consummated their coup in the Senate, I had
\nwritten an article calling on APC to slam down on Saraki and his cronies
\nin the party and sack them for anti party acts insisting that it would be
\nbetter they defect to PDP so that APC will have the sanity it needed to
\nrun a successful regime. APC did not do that as it understandably dithered
\nto see ways of mending the cracks within its National Assembly caucus. The
\ngolden opportunity came when Saraki showed, either through ignorance or
\nmischief, that he was ready to serve unbridled contempt to the party by
\nrejecting its choice as senate party leader and imposing his own choice.
\nIt was an aberration too many that the party should not have allowed. When
\nmy article was published, a friend of mine who is an editor of a newspaper
\ncalled to differ from me. He was coming from the burgeoning Tinubu-phobic
\nschool that have ingrained a deep fear of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and he
\ndidn’t waste time to tell me that Saraki has the blessing of President
\nBuhari and the North in his betrayal as a way of cutting the influence of
\nTinubu in the party. I laughed this off because it showed a bare
\nunderstanding if Nigerian politics which has reduced an average PDP man
\nand sympathiser to vegetable for the fear of one man-Bola Tinubu. I know
\nmy friend came to the full realisation of what really happened when Saraki
\nwas running round the corners of the country and beyond to have an
\naudience with President Buhari and was consistently rebuffed.<\/p>\n
So, as it stands today, Saraki has exhausted all his options to evade the
\nconsequences of his actions. As much as he tries to run away from his
\nshadow, it keeps coming right behind him and he must have resigned himself
\nto fate. This certainly was not the pomp and glory that fired his zeal to
\nsteal the Senate Presidency. This certainly did not come in when he went
\nand traded with the devil to acquire a seat that has now opened its jaws
\nto devour him. This was not in tandem with the dream of a high power
\nplayer he dreamed of when he went out of his way to secure the seat. It
\nsurely is an anti climax to his much vaunted deadly instinct in getting
\nwhatever he wants. Instead of being hailed and regaled as a high state
\nofficial, he is being monikered as an epitome of criminality. Instead of
\nbeing celebrated as a political wiz kid, he is being pummelled as an
\nepitome of sleaze. What is more, with each passing day, more ghastly
\nstories of corruption waft up against him both within and without the
\ncountry; the latest being the Panama Paper scandal. With his senate, he
\ncontinues to pile up opprobrium and contempt with controversial moves made
\nby him and his cahoots to evade the bad fate awaiting him. From joining
\nSaraki as a headless herd to his CCT trials to trying to amend the
\ncriminal code and CCT acts for Saraki to escape from justice, down to
\ntrying to disrupt the CCT trial by staging a dubious invitation to CCT
\nChairman to appear before it, further down to the suspicious purchase of
\nluxury cars which many see as bribery gift items to his supporters, the
\nSenate has shown an eagerness to appropriate Saraki’s personal liabilities
\nso as to save him from justice.<\/p>\n
All these and more have combined to make Saraki a moral cripple, an
\nethical wreck a huge liability and an unwieldy burden to himself and the
\nSenate. In fact, Saraki’s scruples have so infected the Senate that it now
\ntotters irredeemably on the brinks of a fatal collision with Nigerian
\npeople. The gory sight of a senate president alternating between the
\nSenate Presidency’s seat and the CCT dock has so battered the image of the
\nNigerian Senate that Nigerians now see it as accomplices in the many
\ncorrupt crimes Saraki is answering. The senate has chosen willingly to
\nsink and swim with Saraki hence they have altered proceedings to suit
\nSaraki’s caprices and whims. They are like one brood of morons who have
\nnot risen to revolt against the odium where Saraki is dragging what should
\nhave been a hallowed institution to. A senate that prides to revel in the
\ntag ‘distinguished’ has become so diminished that it draws contemptuous
\nsighs abd hisses from Nigerians when mentioned. A senate that has so
\nshamelessly surrendered its independence to Saraki’s elephantine
\nindiscretions has become a huge embarrassment to Nigerians and to itself.
\nA senate that freely chose to appropriate many of Saraki’s crimes has
\nbecome a rebuke to democracy and an insult to Nigerians. Nigerians see
\nSaraki’s Senate as a house of parody, ready to sacrifice ageless values
\nfor disposable personal idiosyncrasies and self serving interests.<\/p>\n
But Saraki has adamantly refused to go. Somehow, there is a feeling that
\nhe prefers to go to jail as a Senate President than an ordinary senator.
\nEven as he runs out of tricks to use to arrest his trial, he tenaciously
\nhangs on to power and has evaded wise counsel to quit in the face of
\ndamning charges against him. He will rather he pulls the house down on him
\nand those that have urged him on with each mishap he suffers in his
\nefforts to stave this poisoned chalice that menacingly stares him in the
\nface. We must call to mind that it took the conflict of identity for
\nEvan(s) Enwerem to resign as Senate President and the bursting of his fake
\nToronto certificate for Salisu Buhari to resign as Speaker, House of
\nRepresentatives. But Saraki is stalking and has refused to resign when
\nmore weighty acts of infraction keeps pouring in on him and when he is
\ndocked for huge corrupt acts thereby dragging the senate down with him.
\nAny further day Saraki stays on as Senate President, he diminishes the
\nsenate more and sheds much of its waning credibility and viability. Any
\nfurther day the senators bandy around him and refuse to do the needful,
\nwhich is his removal, erodes the worth of the entire senate. It is true
\nthat the CCT Chairman told Saraki few days ago that he, and not the
\nsenate, is on trial but this Senate has elected freely to be on trial with
\nSaraki so we must oblige it. The present senate has chosen self immolation
\nbecause it intrinsically tied itself to Saraki’s personal interests so we
\nmust grant its wish. As the senators have chosen to be diminished senators
\ninstead of distinguished senators, we will patiently endure them and wait
\nfor the final outcome of Saraki and the senate’s trial as well as the next
\nelection.
\nPeter Claver Oparah<\/p>\n
I kea, Lagos.
\nE-mail: peterclaver2000@yahoo.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For Bukola Saraki, the embattled Senate President, it never rains but pours. He has enjoyed a permanently stormy tenure since he went at his party’s back and conspired and traded…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n