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.
Bukola Saraki is President of the Senate, Federal Republic of Nigeria.
