Saraki declares for 2019

Senate President Bukola Saraki has declared he intends to run for the presidency in 2019, and sh he has been consulting far and wide.

“I believe I can make the change,” he was quoted to have said by Bloomberg.

Part of his consultation includes visiting former leaders, including ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and former military President Ibrahim Babangida.

But the No 3 man said he would need to win the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to actualise his objective of leading the country.

For his party, he said, “The PDP has learnt its lesson from the loss in 2015, and I think unfortunately the APC did not learn from their victory.”

The formrt nPDP strongman just defected to the PDP.

While negotiating with the PDP, Saraki said they listed a number of issues.

“We talked about how to sustain and improve the fight against corruption; the issue of providing more powers to the states; inclusion and having a more nationalistic approach on things we do; to continue to improve the environment that will ensure investments.

“We listed a number of items during the discussions with the PDP, and there is a written agreement to that. We trust that we can hold them to that.”

About the Department of State Services (DSS) siege on the National Assembly, he expressed concern for 2019.

“If a government can go and lock up an arm of government — and it’s never happened in our history — we should all be very concerned,” Saraki said.

“For you to have credible elections, you must have safe elections. Security agencies are actively getting involved in the politics.”

With his declaration on the media, Saraki has joined a long list of aspirants gunning for for Aso Rock in 2019.

He will be slugging it out with his fellow defector Gov. Aminu Tambuwal, former Gov. Sule Lamido, Ibrahim Shekarau,  ex-VP Atiku Abubakar, PDP ex-Chair Ibrahim Makarfi, Gov. Dankwabo, and others.