Senate President Bukola Saraki
Senate President Bukola Saraki says a call by the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, to get him impeached is wishful thinking.
The APC leader had in a press briefing on Friday evening strongly called on the senate president to resign or be impeached, as he is no longer in the party of majority in the senate.
Saraki recently defected from the ruling APC to the major opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
It has been a tradition in the Senate and in the House of Representatives that the party in the majority produces the Senate President and the Speaker of the House. It is not a law, as this does not have the backing of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
And in his response to Oshiomhole’s call on him to honourably resign, Saraki stated that the APC would continue to dream about their plan to impeach him as they need 73 senators to lawfully make it happen.
”It is rather surprising that Mr Adams Oshiomhole is behaving like a rain-beaten chicken, crying all over the place about Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, as if the senate president is the apparition haunting his life and the sinking ship that he captains,” Saraki, through his media aide, Yusuf Olaniyonu, said in a statement.
“The position of Oshiomhole and his cohorts in the APC that the Senate President must resign is a mere wishful thinking.”
He also said, “They will not stop to dream about their planned removal of the Senate President. They will need 73 Senators to lawfully remove Dr Saraki and they will never get that in the present eight Senate.”
Furthermore, he said the argument of the APC that the senate president must come from a party in the apposition, that the senate presidency is their crown and that the National Assembly is their palace, ”is only supported by ignorance and dangerous delusion.”
He explained that Section 50 (1) (a) of the constitution is clear that any Senator can be elected as Senate President.
Saraki also stated that it was hypocritical to think that the same APC had celebrated when Aminu Tambuwal retained his position after he defected from the PDP to the APC in 2014, even when his new party was in the minority.
He, however, maintained that the issue of which party is in the majority will only be resolved when the Senate resumes.