Saraki: Those who wanted a certain person to be senate president are trying to distract us

Senate President Bukola Saraki says the people who wanted “a certain person to emerge as senate president” are trying to distract the 8th assembly.

The leadership of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) had endorsed Ahmad Lawan, incumbent majority leader, for the position but Saraki teamed up with members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to win the coveted seat.

Speaking at a NAN forum in Abuja, Saraki said the 8th senate surmounted the turbulence that characterised its affairs owing to cooperation and unity among its members.

He said the crisis in the upper legislative chamber began immediately after its inauguration, with his emergence as president of the senate, and with Ike Ekweremadu, a member of the opposition party as his deputy.

He said despite the crisis, the senate recorded unprecedented success.

Saraki explained that as senate president, he was only “first among equals’’ and as such, he ensured that every member of the chamber was carried along in all the plans of the senate.

He said despite the distractions from court cases and wanton allegations, the senate ensured that it remained focused on the agenda it drafted prepared for itself.

“People who wanted a certain person to emerge as senate president or speaker of the house and they have not got it are saying ‘since we cannot win the battle for the national assembly, let’s distract them’,” he said.

He added that he had been able to win the support of 99 percent of the lawmakers because of his leadership style.

“I will humbly say that I have been able to win the support of all my colleagues, I have been able to win their confidence, because the way I occupied leadership is that it is ‘we’, not ‘me’,” he said.

“That is why many people misunderstand this place and say it is the president of the senate that has done that, but most of the things are done collectively.

“I am just first among equals. It is not like the executive where you can fire a minister or commissioner; it doesn’t work like that here, I cannot fire Olusola Adeyeye, for instance.

“If you understand that, you will win their confidence. I will say that 99 per cent of the senate is going in one direction and that is what we have been able to achieve. And who gains for that, the country.”

He also said from the beginning the interest of Nigerians had always been on the minds of the lawmakers.

“From day one we had an agenda, a legislative agenda… It will be interesting for you to get a copy of that agenda and look at those promises that we made; you will see that some of the things we have been doing are not by chance,” he said.

“It is like somebody who is working through a document and he is ticking it and that is why. We have been organised, we have been focused because we had an agenda.

“Our agenda is that the senate will be addressing the economy – that we championed made-in-Nigeria was not by chance; it was part of our agenda.

“We said to ourselves, what can make Nigeria’s economy grow, people are spending so much on importation, why don’t we try and save that.

“Government spends about N1.3 trillion on importation, why doesn’t it spend that on locally-produced goods? So, let us pass a bill that any MDA, before it goes to buy a foreign good must see that there is no local alternative.

“If we do that, it means that N1.3 trillion will be spent inwards. We are talking about infrastructure, it is these laws.

“Railway law has been there for more than 50 years, nobody has reviewed it until we came.

“Ports, inland revenue and now, we are talking about PIB. These are economy-based issues.

“With the ease-of-doing-business rule, we are passing bills that will allow Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to get credits without having landed property.

“We are improving on credit, to allow banks lend to small scale businesses.

“It is because we have been focused, determined and strong-willed and not distracted. Sometimes, I see that all the noise as distraction.”