My dear brother Dele, let me thank you most sincerely for
your article last weekend, “My Candid Letter to Saraki.” I take everything you
said in that article to heart and I must commend you for your candidness indeed
and the sincerity of your intentions.
As you said in your article, you are someone I have known
more by reputation than by any personal relationship, until recently when we
struck up some personal acquaintance based on our shared political interests,
especially during the last presidential election. However, I understand why you
had to sound so defensive for knowing me at all and had to publicly map the
boundaries of our relationship. We have got to that point in our country when
we no longer believe that anyone could stand for anything based on principles
and convictions alone. Moreover, in the growing culture of media crucifixion
and presumed guilt; it is rare to find a voice like yours that calls for
fairness and justice.
I would have simply sent you a text message or call you up
for your candid advice to me, which I take seriously. But I feel the need to
make some clarifications on some of the issues you raised. One of them was that
in seeking to be Senate President, I struck a deal with the PDP and made it
possible for one of them to be the Deputy Senate President. I know this is the
dominant narrative out there, but it is far from the truth.
I did not do any deal with the PDP. I did not have to
because even before the PDP Senators as a group took the decision to support my
candidature on the eve of the inauguration of the 8th Senate, 22 PDP Senators
had already written a letter supporting me. What I did not envisage was a
situation where some members of my party would not be in the chambers that day,
especially when the clerk had already received a proclamation from the
President authorizing the inauguration of the Senate.
Pray, if a team refused
to turn up for a scheduled match and was consequently walked over, would it be
fair to blame the team that turned up and claimed victory? I believe those that
made it possible for PDP to claim the DSP position were those who decided to
hold a meeting with APC senators elsewhere at the time they ought to be in the
chambers. What the PDP Senators did was to take advantage of their numerical
strength at the material time. They simply lined up behind Senator Ike
Ikweremadu while those of us from APC voted for Senator Ali Ndume. It was a
game of numbers, and we were hopelessly outnumbered. If the PDP had nominated
their own candidate for the Senate Presidency position that day, they would
have won. It was as simple as that.
Secondly, I don’t know if you were aware that in the build
up to Senate inauguration, the National Working Committee of the APC sent two
signals. The first signal specified how leadership positions in the National
Assembly have been zoned. While we were trying to give effect to this decision,
the second signal came, which contained names of people to which these zoned
position had been allocated. What was not acknowledged was that the President
of the Senate is not an executive president. He is primarily one of 109
senators.
Therefore, I cannot decide by myself who gets what in the Senate.
Therefore, when they said I defied party directive in the choice of principal
officers, they are invariably ascribing to me the power that I did not have.
My dear brother, most people talk about the Senate
Presidency position, but this was not my only offence. I have also been accused
of helping to frustrate some people’s opportunity to emerge as President
Muhammadu Buhari’s running mate. But I have no problem with anybody. My concern
was that it would not be politically smart of us to run with a Muslim-Muslim
ticket. I doubt if we would have won the election if we had done this,
especially after the PDP had successfully framed us a Muslim party. I felt we
were no longer in 1993.
Perhaps, more than ever before, Nigerians are more
sensitive to issues of religious balancing. This, my brother, was my original
sin. What they say to themselves, among other things, was that if he
could conspire against our ambition, then he must not realize his own ambition
as well. For me however, I have no regrets about this. I only stood for what I
believed was in the best interest of the party and in the best interest of
Nigeria.
Now to the substantive issue of my trial. As you rightly
noted, this trial is not about corruption. And I am happy that since my trial
started, people who have followed the proceedings have now understood better
what the whole thing is about. I have had opportunity to declare my assets four
times since 2003. Over those years, the Code of Conduct Bureau had examined my
claims. There was no time that they raised any issues with me on any item
contained in my declarations over those twelve years. This is why you should be
surprised that while I am being tried by the Code of Conduct Tribunal, the
witness and the evidence supplied against me were all from EFCC.
Like you, I have an abiding faith in the judiciary. May God
forbid the day that we would give up on our judicial system. However, the onus
is not on me to prove that I have confidence in the judiciary; the burden is on
my prosecutors to prove to the world that justice is done in my case. If the
process of fighting corruption is itself corrupt, then whatever victory is
recorded would remain tainted and puerile!
Some people have wondered, why has Saraki been “jumping”
from one court to another instead of facing his trial? To those people, I would
say that I have only gone to those courts in search of justice. Strange things
have happened, and they are still happening. For example, Section 3(d) of the
Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act states that the Bureau shall refer any
breach or non-compliance to the Tribunal.
However, where the person concerned
makes a written admission of the breach, no reference to the Tribunal shall be
necessary. It was on this basis that the case against Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was
dismissed in 2011, by this same judge in this same Tribunal on the grounds that
he was not given an opportunity to deny or admit to any breach before he was
brought before the tribunal. This was the ruling that I relied on in making my
case. But what did the judge say? That he had judged in error in 2011 and he
had since realized his error and departed from it.
My question is whether a
Tribunal of first instance has the power to reverse itself. I should expect
that everyone would be worried if justice is applied differently to different
people. However, in spite of my fears, I remain hopeful. Why? Because the
judiciary does not end with this Tribunal.
Do you know the genesis of my real problems with President
Goodluck Jonathan? I have had a touchy relationship with him, but the turning
point was in September 2011 when I moved a motion on the floor of the Senate
that exposed the N2.3 trillion fuel subsidy racket.
I remain proud that I was
the Senator that blew the lid on the most elaborate corruption scheme ever in
this country. But after that I became a marked man. My security was withdrawn.
I was invited and re-invited by the EFCC and the Special Fraud Unit. I was even
declared wanted at a point. I believe I am still one of the most investigated
former governors in this country. I have no doubt that if the Jonathan
government was able to find anything against me, they would not have allowed me
to go unpunished.
Let me make this point clearly. I do not expect to be
shielded from prosecution because of my contribution to APC, if there was
genuine basis for such action to be taken against me. But I have every reason
to expect not to be persecuted by the party that I contributed so much to
build. The New PDP may not have given APC victory in 2015, but it was an
important factor in the dynamics that produced that victory. And with all sense
of modesty, I was an important factor in the formation of New PDP; in leading
that group to the APC; in ensuring our group’s support for the candidate during
the primaries and in mobilizing substantial resources for the election. For
these, I have not expected any special compensation. Rather, I only expect to
be treated like every loyal party member and accorded the right to freely
aspire!
Some people have complained that I have been taken Senators with
me to my trial. But I did not force them to follow me. The Senators have freely
accompanied me to the Tribunal not because they are loyal to me as Abubakar
Bukola Saraki, but because they are committed to the principle that produced me
as the President of the Senate. The same principle that produced Ike Ekweremadu
as Deputy Senate President and produced Ali Ndume as Majority Leader.
They see
all of us in the Senate leadership as manifestation of their jealously guarded
right to freely choose their own leaders. Because they know they made us their
leaders without any external interference; they are confident that they retain
the power to remove us whenever they so wish. They also know what this trial is
all about. They believe I am being victimized because they have expressed their
right to choose their own leadership. This is why I am not in any way perturbed
by my absence in the chambers during this trial.
Because I was not imposed on
the Senate, I feel confident that the Senate will protect its own choice
whether I am present or not. It is never about me. It is about the independence
of the legislature. It has always been so since 1999. It is so today and it
would be so in 2019, it would be so in 2023, and as long as we practice a
democracy that operates on the principle of separation of powers.
My dear brother, let me end by observing that I am not alone
in this trial. On trial with me in this process is the entire judicial system.
On trial with me are our entire anti-corruption institutions and our avowed
commitment to honestly fight corruption. On trial with me is our party’s
promise to depart from the ways of the past, a promise that Nigerians voted
for. And I dare say, on trial with me is our media; and their ethical
commitment to report fairly and objectively. In the end, it is my earnest hope
that whatever we do will ultimately ennoble our country.
*Dr. Saraki is President of the Senate, Federal Republic of
Nigeria
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