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Saraki: Time To Go!! / David Mark Pressurized To Step Down Against Senatorial Rerun / Saraki: Time To Step Down By Olatunji Dare (2) (3) (4)
Saraki: Time To Step Down by Titilayodeji13(m): 6:47am On Sep 22, 2015 |
When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
This is the time-tested piece of advice I would
have passed on to the beleaguered Senate
President Bukola Saraki if he was not too far
gone in his self- absorption, his overweening
sense of entitlement, his predilection for
cutting corners, and his Raskolnikov Complex,
the delusion named for the central character in
Dostoyevsky great novel, Crime and
Punishment, that the rules do not apply to him.
Summoned to appear before the Code of
Conduct Tribunal(CCT) in the investigation of
some baffling inconsistencies in his
declaration of assets, he spurns the order,
dismisses the charges as false and frivolous,
awards himself an acquittal, and seeks a court
to block the Tribunal’sproceedings.
In response to this contumacy, the CCT issued
a Bench warrant for his arrest. Saraki
petitioned another court in a bid to void the
warrant. Based on that petition, he again
failed to show up before the CCT.
The CCT, Saraki charged, was being used to
fight political opponents “to achieve through
the back door what some people cannot get
through democratic process.”
It is almost as if it was through the front door,
and in a process emblematic of the best
democratic practice, that he had emerged
Senate president. I use the word “emerged”
deliberately. By his own account, he had been
in hiding until it was safe to join his fellow
plotters on the floor of the National Assembly
where he was canonised in a proceeding that
seemed like the parliamentary equivalent of a
street mugging.
His spokesperson warns that “we should not
destroy our political institutions and heat up
the polity for selfish reasons” in a desperate
bid to settle political scores and nail imaginary
enemies, adding gravely: “Let us all learn
from history.”
Again, it is almost as if the process through
which Saraki became Senate president was the
quintessence of altruism and selflessness, and
that it had, withal, brought down the nation’s
political temperature from dangerously high to
super normal.
The Tribunal’s summons, his spokesperson
further said, amounted to an abuse of the rule
of law which portends danger to the judicial
system. Saraki affects the language of
democracy but readily employs the tactics of a
backroom fixer. He is ever so ready to remind
everyone that he ranks third in the nation’s
constitutional order. Yet his conduct is
sometimes almost indistinguishable from that
of a political tout.
Where is the noblesse oblige that should
always inform the conduct of the holder of his
exalted office?
Within hours of the CCT’s order enjoining
Saraki to appear before it, a shadowy
organisation calling itself Nigerians of
Conscience Against Impunity rushed a full-
page advertisement to the major newspapers,
demanding that officials of the Code of
Conduct Bureau resign immediately and face
prosecution for “gross violations” of their
office.
It was all so reminiscent of the shabby tactics
Saraki’s surrogates in the Senate employed
when his wife was invited for questioning by
the EFCC in connection with some mysterious
lodgments in her banking transactions. In
what was clearly an act of petulant
vindictiveness, they announced that the
National Assembly was set to launch an
investigation into reports that EFCC officials
had corruptly enriched themselves with funds
recovered from fraudsters.
In the wake of all this drama, another –or
perhaps the same set — set of Saraki’s
surrogates recruited a huge delegation to
travel from Ilorin to Abuja for the express
purpose of conferring on him a traditional title
of dubious worth. The real purpose of the
visitation, I suspect, was to create for the
embattled Senate president the illusion of
mass popularity and acceptability.
One of his proxies even has it that Saraki is
being pursued because of his zero tolerance
for corruption, in keeping with the notorious
fact that if you fight corruption, corruption will
fight you back.
No comment.
Thus has Saraki continued to dig and dig with
increasing fury since finding himself in a hole
last June, in the hope that he can spend or
bluff or bully or lawyer his way out of it. He
deepened that hole yesterday when he failed
to appear before the CCT which had issued a
Bench warrant for his arrest.
One of his former comrades in the old PDP
and one-time Minister of Works, Adeseye
Ogunlewe, has warned that a situation in
which the Senate president keeps making trips
to the courts would not only “put
Nigeria in bad light” but slow down activities in
the National Assembly, which would in turn
affect the nation.
Ogunlewe said if Saraki appeared before the
Tribunal and was found guilty, Saraki would
appeal the verdict to the High Court (sic). If
his guilt was affirmed there, Saraki would take
his case to the Court of Appeal. And if found
guilty there, Saraki would head to the Supreme
Court.
Prosecuting Saraki was therefore not a good
move, according to Ogunlewe.”Imagine the
amount of time that would be wasted and the
effect it will have on the legislative work within
that period.
If this intervention was designed to help Saraki
keep the post of Senate president, it achieved
the precise opposite. It makes a powerful
case for Saraki’s immediate and unconditional
resignation, regardless of his guilt or
innocence.
A Senate president traipsing from one court to
another would be a pathetic sight indeed, even
if it is to answer traffic charges. But we are
dealing with investigations into allegations of
serious fraud. That the president of the
Senate could figure in these allegations,
however tangentially, should be cause for his
resignation
Noblesse oblige enjoins such an official to
resign at the merest intimation of sleaze, real
or merely perceived, in his conduct.
In Saraki’s case, these intimations can no
longer be ignored. There is the matter of the
forged House Rules with which he procured
the post of Senate president. There are the
ongoing investigations into his wife’s
finances. There is the charge that he made
false entries in declaring his assets. And there
is festering matter of how hundreds of
depositors lost small fortunes in the family-
owned bank that he ran aground, with nary a
dent on his personal fortune.
Each of these issues should move a public
official in a country that sets a high store by
probity to step down. Together, they make a
compelling case for Saraki’s resignation.
Saraki cannot be the public face of the Senate
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He does
not have the gravitas to steer through the
legislature the agenda on which President
Muhammadu Buhari ran and won. He lacks
the moral standing to preside over the
hearings at which Buhari’s nominees for
important positions are confirmed or rejected.
Saraki, being Saraki, will most likely hang in
there and hang tough.
That might serve him well if he can pull it off.
But it cannot serve the larger national interest
that he now claims to be espousing. Everyday
that Saraki continues to wield the gavel
diminishes the office of the Senate president
and the stature of the Senate.
If he will not step down voluntarily, the Senate
should, even if only from a sound instinct for
self –preservation, ask him to go or face
impeachment.
This national nightmare cannot continue for
much longer. http://thenationonlineng.net/saraki-time-to-step-down/ |
Re: Saraki: Time To Step Down by Imortal001: 6:53am On Sep 22, 2015 |
Yeas |
Re: Saraki: Time To Step Down by broxymall(m): 6:58am On Sep 22, 2015 |
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Re: Saraki: Time To Step Down by ademega(m): 7:10am On Sep 22, 2015 |
going |
Re: Saraki: Time To Step Down by museveni(m): 7:11am On Sep 22, 2015 |
Saraki has found himself in the middle of Atlantic Ocean but still believing he can swim to the shore. Let's see how you will get out of this. |
Re: Saraki: Time To Step Down by funlord(m): 7:13am On Sep 22, 2015 |
Saraki is of no use to our democracy! He needs to gel lost from that seanate 1 time! |
Re: Saraki: Time To Step Down by modath(f): 7:14am On Sep 22, 2015 |
Saraki believes he is not only wiser than the whole APC put together, he is also operating under the erroneous belief that Nigerians are rooting for me... I have not seen one DECENT soul in support of the cunny, deceptive & shameless manner |
Re: Saraki: Time To Step Down by edogirl2: 7:24am On Sep 22, 2015 |
There must be very few countries in the world (mostly banana republics) where a Senate President will face these serious allegations and not resign immediately to clear his name in court. But I am not holding out hope of a resignation from Mr Saraki. From what I have read about him, he seems like a man so self absoved with himself and possessing an unrivalled sense of pride and entitlement. But the decent thing to do is to resign that position now. Otherwise, all the good name Buhari is trying to build for Nigeria internationally will vapourise. Having a sitting Senate President sitting in a dock will make the country a total laughing stock. |
Re: Saraki: Time To Step Down by bashman004: 8:23am On Sep 22, 2015 |
If only he knows the meaning of the word Morale. |
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