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Courtesy Guardian
President, Saraki meet soon over N’ Assembly crisis, says Wamakko
By Azimazi Momoh Jimoh, Abuja on September 28,
• Rules out Senate president’s removal • Says PDP not plottingto take No. 3 citizen’s job
THERE are indications that President Muhammadu Buhari may soon meet with the Senate President Abubakar Bukola Saraki towards creating and nurturing an atmosphere of peace and understanding between the legislative and executive arms of government.
Immediate past governor of Sokoto State, Senator Aliyu Magatatakarda Wamakko, who dropped the hint in an interview in Abuja yesterday, also disclosed that a majority of Senators have been fully informed and are aware that Buhari has no hand in Saraki’s ongoing trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).
Wamakko also dismissed as untrue, reports that Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senators were plotting a leadership change in the Senate, adding that such reports are the handiwork of influential persons outside the Federal Government who were bent on causing disharmony in the system to achieve their selfish interests.
Wamakko said senators are rather meeting to strengthen the Senate under Saraki with a view to recovering lost grounds on the legislative business under the All Progressives Congress (APC) government.
He said unknown to many, Buhari has nothing to do with Saraki’s present ordeal, especially his stand-off with the Code of Conduct Bureau, which dragged him before the Code of Conduct Tribunal.
“President Buhari is rather worried about the near- state of inaction in the National Assembly and hence, has never been opposed to moves by the Senate President to get the Senate back on a high octave in the interest of democracy,” Wamakko noted.
Without mentioning a specific date for the meeting, Wamakko said: “I see Mr. President, Saraki and senators holding a meeting very soon on how to salvage democracy which certain elements have been trying to subvert. They will find time to meet to stop our opponents from progressing with acts to sabotage democracy.
“Once the President and the Senate leadership sit on a round table with a resolve to re-oiling the wheels of democracy for national progress, the cynics, the political rabble-rousers and those who never mean well for the APC government will go to sleep.”
He said since Saraki has appeared before the Code of Conduct Tribunal, critics should stop pre-empting the issues and the laws.
He noted that those hoping to promote discord between the President and the Senate President would soon realise that democracy has advanced in Nigeria.
Wamakko also appealed to the media to show deeper understanding of the situation in the Senate by avoiding reports capable of creating confusion in the Upper Chamber, stating that the removal of Saraki as being canvassed by those he described as faceless groups outside the National Assembly will end up as an ill-wind that will blow no good for the Senate, democracy and Nigeria.
He said: “Majority of senators, weeks ago, passed a vote of confidence in Saraki because they were convinced that his style of leadership has been broad and progressive. Nothing has changed. A majority of our colleagues still believe that Saraki remains a stabilising factor in the Senate for now.
“A change of leadership, at this point in time, as being canvassed, will certainly spark some endless sessions of rancour, suspicion, crisis and uncertainty among members. When such begin to happen, no one will be able to predict the end.”
Wamakko said Saraki shared the same ideology of ‘change’ with Buhari, adding that every step so far taken by the Senate had been inclined towards promoting the change mantra, with natio
