Anxiety in APC over Saraki-Buhari’s romance

GOOD times are here for Senate President Bukola Saraki as he now pops up frequently at Aso Rock, helping President Muhammadu Buhari get a soft-landing every now and then the executive has a face-off with the legislature.

And by way of payback, the presidency is also becoming less keen on unravelling the mesh of corruption cases Saraki has been caught up in since 2015.

It’s on record Saraki has visited Buhari no fewer than seven times between November and January (three times in a week in November) to resolve issues, including the $29 billion loan proposal, the 2017 budget proposal, and others.

The latest reason for a jaw-jaw between the No 1 and No. 2 citizens might not be unconnected with the quick-fire demotion of Sen. Ali Ndume (APC Borno) as Senate leader last week, and the installation of Sen. Ahmed Lawan, the APC preferred candidate on whom Saraki played a fast one in June 2015 to clinch the Senate topmost job.

Nigerians had thought Ndume was cut to size because he moved against the Senate in Ibrahim Magu’s confirmation crisis. But the senator thinks otherwise.

“I didn’t feel that disagreeing with colleagues, and sharing my understanding of what transpired at our closed session was an offence, grievous enough to cause my removal,” he told the Premium Times.

But the Senate president said the House is bigger than anybody. And as such, there can’t be any problem over Ndume’s removal. “Everything is calm, solid and fine,” said Saraki
In this unfolding calmness, however, the political undercurrent, according to analysts, is the truce that expediency is forging between Buhari and Saraki, two mutual enemies created by party superiority and ego.

And the peace deal will determine a lot in the APC government in 2017.

“A harmonious relationship has already started between the two organs, “said Chairman Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs Monsurat Summonu recently. “O yes, I mean, we’ve started and it will continue.”

So it’s no longer surprising that a holier-than-thou anti-corruption czar of a president now sees eye to eye with a Senate president that was buckling under a load of corruption allegations at the Code of Conduct Tribunal over false asset declaration last year, and some other fresh ones the EFCC and the attorney-general were planning to prosecute.

But this harmony comes with so much bargaining, directly or indirectly. And the trade-offs are already trickling down. Before Ndume was offered as peace offering to the bitter APC whose Chairman John Oyegun said Saraki wasn’t too big to sacrifice for corruption, Aso Rock was the first to offer an Olive branch. The House Standing Order forgery case was dropped against the Senate president and his deputy Ike Ekweremadu last year.

That is in addition to how the CCT proceeding has been going on in fits and starts for two years now thanks to Saraki’s brinkmanship which had been pitting the National Assembly against the executive over appropriations, loan proposals, and confirmation of Buhari’s nominees, among others.

CCT’s Justice Danladi Umar claims he’s only following the spirit and letter of law by agreeing to many adjournments over these years.

“We are bound by the ACJA; we are trying to be lenient with all the parties,” he said last week when the case was adjourned till January 17. “This matter is hereby adjourned to Jan. 17 for continuation of hearing,” Jacobs had said some of the prosecution witnesses were in Lagos and that time was needed to enable him to produce them.”

Saraki too has had to makeor lead the Senate to makeone or two concessions here and there: the $30 billion loan crisis that was eventually resolved, and the ambassadorial nominees that were later sorted out.

There were also media reports that a cabal in Aso Rock had told Saraki he would be let off the CCT hook if he could ensure the Senate reject EFCC’s Acting Chairman Ibrahim Magu.

“On several occasion when the EFCC played a major role in the arraignment and prosecution of Senator Saraki, the AGF and several members of his team, including the Solicitor-General of the Federation and the Director of Public Prosecution, had put enormous pressure on Rotimi Jacobs, the independent prosecutor in charge of the case,” Sahara Reporters stated in one of its investigations on October 27.

The sleight of hands that led to Magu’s rejection has convinced many that a lot of horse trading is going on behind the curtain, and it is yielding positively.

Magu and Ndume have been offered up now. No fewer than 39 APC senators banded up to freeze the former Senate leader out of the post. A couple of others may soon be offered as bargaining chips, too.

Saraki has denied sacrificing anybody to save his own scalp, though. “Do I look like someone that does things like that?” He said when State House correspondents asked him about Ndume.

Well, the Senate president might have a like a lamb’s, but he certainly has a lion’s heart. And as the new-found love between him and Buhari sizzles, the odds, observers say, are high he will lead the Senate unscathed for four years.

And all the allegations against him, weighty enough, as many say, to have forced him to step down, will come to nothing. Which critics say is a slur on Buhari’s anti-corruption campaign, and his own character.