To many senators, particularly those of the ruling All Progressives Congress who were supporting Senator Ahmad Lawan (Yobe North) to be the President of the Senate, the emergence of Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki (Kwara Central) is still like a dream. In fact, some of them would definitely still be hallucinating and praying that it is never a reality.
However, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Also, for other stakeholders in the APC, especially the godfathers and all those that had pegged their support for a particular candidate, who later missed out in the race, Saraki never emerged the President of the Senate.
Some of them have rather degenerated to a state of insomnia, where they could neither sleep well at night nor had peace of mind during the day. For the pro-Saraki’s group, the Like Minds Senators, and most Nigerians who have been praying that only the people’s choice candidate should emerge, they have since come to a conclusion that the issue is neither a dream nor a fantasy. They are more in tune with the reality of what transpired on the floor of the Senate last Tuesday than those who lost in the jostle for the exalted office. However, from a mediatory standpoint, the truth is that the event of Tuesday June 9, 2015, which took place in the hallowed Chambers of the Senate, has become an irreversible reaction as chemists would say about certain chemical changes in their laboratory.
The emergence of Senator Saraki as the President of the Eighth Senate has come to stay, and there is much doubt about a possibility of a reversal. While senators in Lawan’s camp are still mourning their great loss in this political dispensation as far as the configuration of the Senate leadership is concerned, the supporters of Saraki are on the other hand jubilating and making merry for what they and most Nigerians consider as victory for democracy and death sentence for the era of godfatherism and impunity in the nation’s political and democratic process. The whole scenario played out like a melodrama. The day was officially scheduled for the inauguration of the National Assembly. But the intense crisis in the APC over who would emerge the President of the Senate pushed the Lawan’s group to rush to the International Conference Centre, Abuja for a purported meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.
As they reportedly waited for the President, the Clerk of the National Assembly, Alhaji Salisu Maikasuwa read the President’s letter, proclaiming the Eighth National Assembly. Thereafter, he called for nominations of interested candidates in the Senate Presidency contest, during which only Saraki was nominated and declared the President of the Senate. The irreconcilable crisis in the APC brought an unprecedented opportunity for the Peoples Democratic Party, to join the ruling part to form the leadership of the Senate. Some people call it Nemesis.
Those who share this view recall that, in 2011, the APC was allegedly instrumental to the emergence of Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, the immediate past Speaker of the House of Representatives. The PDP had zoned speakership to the South-West but Tambuwal, with the full support of the APC leadership, through their members in the House, defied the party directive, contested and won the election. In a similar circumstance, the APC had zoned the Senate Presidency not just to the North-East but also to Senator Ahmad Lawan, as its preferred candidate. The party also zoned the office of the Speaker to the South West and Femi Gbajabiamila was the choice candidate for the leadership of the party.
As it happened in the past, Bukola Saraki, former Governor of Kwara State and second term senator, indicated interest in becoming the next President of the Senate, defying what democrats describe as the undemocratic tendencies of the APC. Despite all efforts to intimidate and truncate his ambition, Saraki forged ahead until he emerged. At the end of the day, by divine providence, he got dramatically elected in a circumstance that is practically beyond human comprehension. Also in the House, the candidate of the party lost to the candidate of the people.
This is however, without discountenancing the prominent role the PDP played in paying the APC back in its own coin in the election of the presiding officers of the Eighth National Assembly. Although Saraki and Yakubu Dogara, the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, are currently being accused of anti-party activities, and being threatened with sanctions, it is a matter of sowing and reaping. The highly jolted members of the APC, have to come to the reality of the situation, that Saraki is the President of the Senate. Therefore, the issue is not a dream but an irreversible reality.