SARAKI'S LOYALISTS TO RUBBISH BUHARI'S MINISTERIAL LIST.

Moves to impeach Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki
are under way.
This is as members of the Senate Unity Forum had started
wooing senators loyal to Saraki, mainly the Peoples
Democratic Party members.
Saturday Punch reports that the SUF members are arguing
that the ongoing trial of the Senate President at the Code of
Conduct Tribunal was a dent on the image of the Senate.
The SUF decided to reach out to their rivals as they need
two-thirds of Senators to impeach Saraki.
PDP has 49 Senators while APC has 59, excluding Senator
Zannah who died.
On June 6, 57 out of 108 senators reportedly voted for
Saraki.
This means that the SUF, which wants Senator Ahmed
Lawan to emerge as Senate President, needs 21 more
members to achieve victory.
But members of the group from the South-West geopolitical
zone, told Punch that the SUF will soon hit the 73 figure.
He said, “We know that getting the required figure to carry
out an impeachment at the moment would be a herculean
task, but honestly we hope to achieve it very soon. Already
there has been a serious move to get our former party
members who are with Saraki now back to our camp.
“I can also confirm to you that we have the support of
about 12 Peoples Democratic Party senators who are ready
to support any move against Saraki. Don’t forget that some
ranking PDP senators are still aggrieved over the
emergence of freshers as their principal officers.”
Another source said the group was in a race against time to
save President Muhammadu Buhari from facing
embarrassment when he finally sends his ministerial list.
According to him, Saraki’s loyalists, in retaliation to his
predicament, had decided to ridicule the list.
“We learnt that the like minds senators are already working
on some of their supporters in the PDP camp to reject the
ministerial list by refusing to screen them but we are also
ready for them. I won’t disclose our strategy for now.”
It was also gathered that the SUF members were also
working on a political solution to execute its agenda.
He said, “We know that he might want to give conditions
like a settlement of his CCT case out of court, withdrawing
of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission charges
against his wife and an end to his former manager’s trial
for alleged fraud at the Société Générale Bank. We could
help him in this regard to have a soft landing and avoid
disgrace.”
Part of the strategy, the source added, would include
sponsoring of a motion by a member of the group to draw
the attention of the red chamber to the trial of Saraki and
plead with him to save himself from unnecessary
distraction by stepping aside for adequate concentration at
the tribunal.
He said, “Nigerians should not see the on-going trial of the
senate president as a witch-hunt, rather, they should rather
try and find out whether it was true that he included a
multi – million dollar property he bought in 2006 as part of
his assets in 2003.
“We should stop playing politics with everything in this
country. The mantra of the President Muhammadu Buhari
administration is anti – corruption and it will not be proper
to have a morally deficient person presiding over the affairs
of the legislature, being a critical arm of government.
“The prosecution counsel had promised to shock Nigerians
with the revelations of witnesses who had testified against
the senate president at the CCT. The implication of this is
that all the charges were not fabricated or invented to spite
him. He should therefore go and face his trial.”
Attempts to get the reactions of the National Chairman of
the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, the party’s National
Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed as well as that of
the party’s National Leader, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, were
unsuccessful.
The National Chairman of the party could not be reached as
calls to his mobile telephone indicated that it was switched
off.
Repeated calls to the mobile telephone numbers of
Mohammed and Tinubu’s Spokesperson, Mr. Sunday Dare,
were neither picked nor returned.
A response to text messages sent to them was still being
awaited.
But reacting, a pro-Saraki senator said the Senate President
was not threatened because the CCT had no jurisdiction to
try him for any criminal offence.
He said, “The idea that members of the SUF are reaching
out to pro-Saraki senators in the senate does not arise
because majority of the members of the upper chamber
had freely elected their presiding officers and would not be
in a hurry to remove them because of any politically
motivated trial by a tribunal which lacks jurisdiction to do
so.
“Nobody can impeach or arrest the Senate President, and
the lawyers are there to argue out the competence or
otherwise of the CCT to try the case preferred against him.
More than 80 senators had signed a document with which
they unanimously passed a vote of confidence on their
president.
“No senator had approached any of us on any issue of
impeachment because they know the answer already. They
cannot get 73 senators to impeach the Senate President.
They are playing games and we are also ready for them.