Atiku ‘reunites’ Saraki with Tinubu

Until Friday, Bola Tinubu, national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and Senate President Bukola Saraki were last seen together during the buildup to the general election.

Both men toured the length and breadth of the country, canvassing votes for the ruling party, but all that ceased shortly after APC won the presidential election.

The decision of Saraki to defy the leadership of the party in his quest to lead the senate pitched the former governors of Lagos and Kwara states against one another.

Saraki confirmed this when a newspaper reported that both men were plotting to work against the government of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Most Nigerians are aware that there has been no meeting or communication between me and Asiwaju Tinubu since I was elected Senate President,” he had said.

However, as guests of Atiku, who gave out three of his daughters in marriage in Yola on Friday, Saraki and Tinubu sat close to each other.

Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the house of representatives, who, like Saraki, refused to heed APC’s wish, was also at the occasion.

Before now, Tinubu did not spare Saraki the length of his tongue any time the opportunity presented itself.

Last month, the APC leader ruled out any form of reconciliation with the two-time senator.

“The manner by which Saraki captured his current seat travestied party discipline. It was a crass act of disloyalty showing that Saraki may have joined the APC on paper but has remained true to the malpractices and wrong aims of the reactionary PDP in his soul,” Tinubu had said in a statement.

Tinubu also taunted Saraki during the period when the senate president was evading the summons of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).

“Government officials are no longer believed by the citizens. When one has a public responsibility, the citizens look at it as if the source of wealth to steal and mismanage public funds and do things not included in the democratic norms and values,” he had told reporters after observing Eid prayers back in September.

“It is not what I haven’t personally experienced. I have been through it. Go through it at once and have a nation that we will all be proud of. We have to live by example and by our words. We can be talking about it alone. We have to work it without any iota of blackmail.”

On his part, Saraki maintained that his trial was nothing but “witch-hunt”

“I strongly believe that I am here because I am the senate president. I have come here to subject myself before this tribunal not because I am guilty … I am a firm believer of the rule of law,” he had said on his first day at the tribunal.

Whether the verbal exchange between the influential leaders will stop as a result of this weekend’s meeting, will be known in the days ahead.