Senator Bukola Saraki is a leading contender for the presidency of the next senate. In this interactive session with journalists, he speaks about his aspiration and why the lawmakers should be allowed to select their leaders. MUYIWA OYINLOLA was there for LEADERSHIP
There is this campaign that from your name, you are Yoruba and since the vice president is Yoruba, the senate president should come from another zone. How do you react to this?
I think I must have pre-empted your question when I said that we have made mistakes in the past, particularly when it comes to the people and ensuring that we put our best team forward. In this case, I think merit and capacity should be the number one criteria, especially in an issue like this. This is our position, this is my own view. We have made a lot of mistakes in the past; we had gone for the bureaucracy and short-changed ourselves because we did not address the issue of capacity.
It is perceived that you have a 2019 presidential ambition. As a northerner, you are eminently qualified but what they do not want to do is allow you, as a Senate president, to fly the party’s flag.
That is the problem that a lot of our politicians have, they still believe in the past and you may ask why do I say that? I think it will be pretty much irresponsible of any politician, after going through what we went through in winning election in 2015 to start talking of 2019. The only reason why you will do that is because you are still in those days that when you were in the seat of power, it was automatic that your party will continue to sit on that seat. And this is part of the mistakes our politicians make, they do not see this change that some of us talk about. Any politician today that is thinking about 2019 and does not think about how this 2015 government performs is missing the point. The point today is that the same way you came in on the popularity that the government did not perform and the Nigerian people went and agreed with us to say this government did not perform, we need a new one; if you do not perform, forget 2019.
So, honestly, anybody talking about 2019 is not realistic about today’s times. For someone like me that people are saying, I contested in 2011, I did not contest in 2015. So the people that contested in 2015 but did not contest in 2011, they have all the right to say they are going to contest but I did not contest. I made those sacrifice because I believed that it was not proper for that to happen.
From what you have said so far, will it be correct to say you are more in support of leaving the senators to decide who will emerge?
That is the best way you will ensure stability. We’ve seen in 1999, when it happened, there was no stability. The only time that the Senate and House of Representatives have been stable is when they were allowed to pick who they want because now the news in the Senate and House of Reps leadership. After June 9, you are all going to move to something else like cabinet and leave us to our own issues. So, if you now leave us and we are now in a situation where this is not what we want, there will now be crisis. It is shown, three months, six months, so it is better that the senators or members of the House of Reps pick who they want because then, they will be better composed and they will be stability and it is that stability and cooperation that the National Assembly needs to be able to perform properly in giving support to the executive and pushing some of these agenda that we want to give to the Nigerian people. So, definitely, it is in the best interest of everybody, the party can advise and guide.
The feeling out there is that you are making this case for the lawmakers to choose whoever they want because if it’s left to zoning, the party will zone you out.
Why should the party zone me out? From the two attempts to resolve the zoning, the first one by the NWC, whether it’s formal or not, what we heard was that the NWC zoned it to the North Central. When the governors met as well, what was recommended was the North Central. So, from the zoning point of view, why should I believe I will be zoned out when the two attempts were both recommending the North Central?
Why I am saying it is not because of being zoned out. I’m talking about the stability of the National Assembly; I’m talking also about what happened in the past. If you look at the past Senate president that did not survive, how was their emergence? If you look at those that survived as well, how was their emergence? And if you go through that, you will see that stability comes largely when the National Assembly is allowed to choose.
The latest one is what happened in the House of Representatives. Despite all the issues, the speaker survived the entire four years because he was their choice. Same with David Mark, same with Ken Nnamani. History has shown that it is always better to allow them to choose and not whether it is to my advantage or to my disadvantage.
Even if I was not in the race and I was asked to make a comment, i’ll say we can guide them, but at the end of the day they should be allowed to choose because what we want from the National Assembly is stability and be able to work with the executive and deliver on some of these policies, that is what should be important to Nigerians always. And it is also part of strengthening our democracy and when we are talking about change, we want a departure from how things used to be so it is not going to be business as usual so we must practice what we preach.
