Senator ''Saraki will definitely be impeached'' Adams Oshiomole says

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, held a press briefing in Abuja today, where he said that his party will do everything possible to ensure Senate President Bukola Saraki who recently defected from APC to PDP, gets impeached if he fails to resign honorably.

 

Speaking at the press conference, Oshiomole asked Saraki to immediately resign honourably or be impeached according to law and democratic norms.

''If he (Saraki) thinks that by saying that he will preempt the APC from having him impeached, he is deceiving himself. I think that the time of Saraki is over, the way he has manipulated the politics of Kwara state, he failed to understand that the Nigerian project is far more complicated than being at the mercy of his own dynasty.

“He will not only be impeached, we will work hard to have him defeated as a senator in his own Senatorial zone come 2019 by the people of Kwara state who are fed up with Saraki.

Go and check the results of the elections that made him a senator and you will find out that the President got more votes from Kwara central than Saraki got for himself. So, he can’t claim that the vote the APC got from his Senatorial zone was because of him.

“And that is why his decamping from APC is of no political consequences as far as electoral issues are concerned. We tried to talk to him, not out of fear, but out of conviction that as a presiding officer, there are rules of engagement and we don’t want him to get so emotional as to affect those rules of engagements.”Oshiomole said

 

Read the full text of his speech at the press conference below

''We decided to call for this press conference basically to respond to issues raised by the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki during his press conference. It is important that we respond to some of the issues he canvassed, so that the public is not misled into turning villains into heros and twisting the facts that are not hidden to the Nigerian public. It is important that we help the Nigerian public by refreshing their memories.

Go and check the results of the elections that made him a senator and you will find out that the President got more votes from Kwara central than Saraki got for himself. So, he can’t claim that the vote the APC got from his Senatorial zone was because of him.

“And that is why his decamping from APC is of no political consequences as far as electoral issues are concerned. We tried to talk to him, not out of fear, but out of conviction that as a presiding officer, there are rules of engagement and we don’t want him to get so emotional as to affect those rules of engagements.”Oshiomole said

 

Read the full text of his speech at the press conference below

''We decided to call for this press conference basically to respond to issues raised by the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki during his press conference. It is important that we respond to some of the issues he canvassed, so that the public is not misled into turning villains into heros and twisting the facts that are not hidden to the Nigerian public. It is important that we help the Nigerian public by refreshing their memories.

The Senate President raised the issues of the fact that he has always acted not on the basis of his own personal interest, but that he has always acted on the basis of national interest. The truth is that it is doubtful if the Senate President has ever acted either in the National interest or in the interest of his own political party before his defection recently. Without going back to ancient history, it is important to look at how Senator Bukola Saraki became the President of the Senate. He decided, clearly, against the party position to enter into a deal with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and got a faction of the PDP, taking advantage of the fact that majority of the APC senators were holding a meeting at the International Conference Centre to resolve the issue of leadership of the senate and other principal officers that are expected to be produced by the ruling party with majority senators. Because he has put his personal interest over and above the interest of the party, he went into alliance with the PDP and conceded the position of Deputy Senate President to the opposition in other to obtain their support for him to become the Senate 

President. So, for the first time in our democratic history in Nigeria, we had a situation whereby, whereas the APC had majority of Senators, it went on to elect a PDP person as Deputy Senate President. This action alone portray Senator Saraki for who he is and that his personal interest come before any other interest, including national interest and that of his political party.

Having gone into this unholy alliance with the opposition and mortgaging the rights of the ruling party, he appointed opposition senators to head sensitive and strategic committees whose activities can affect either for good or for bad, the working of government and the relationship between the government and the legislature. Senator Saraki did that in other to continue to protect himself against the wishes of his party as Senate President. That showed that the only thing that was constant in his mind was to cling on to the position of Senate President even if it is at the expense of his own party and the country.

Even the media has consistently drawn attention to how Senator Saraki is managing the Senate to the extent that questions have been raised as to whose interest the Senate was serving.