The Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL, enraged by the effrontery of the call by some All Progressive Congress, APC Senators on the Federal Government, FG to drop the case against the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, has described the call as preposterous and totally unacceptable.
Media reports of the meeting of APC Senators with the leadership of the party had revealed that the lawmakers are demanding that the FG and President Mohammadu Buhari should drop the case Saraki at the CCT, declaring the trial as being ‘political’.
‘What an ‘easy’ way out for the ‘untouchable’ Senate President with so much baggage of corruption allegations against him! Mr. Debo Adeniran, the Executive Chairman of CACOL exclaimed. He said “this is totally outrageous, irresponsible, immoral and disrespectful of the constitution of our country, Nigeria.”
“It betrays the very fact that the deceit of the occupiers of our public offices including their so-called parties knows no bounds and no shame. These are supposed members of a party that rode on the mantra of change and commitment to fight corruption to get to power openly clogging the progress of movement towards change and anti-corruption as against the desires of the majority of Nigerians that voted them in 2015.”
“It is important to state to these shenanigans that Mohummadu Buhari is not the FG, he is the President, and that makes it obligatory for him to comply with the constitution of the Federal Republic. It is the Republic, the State, the country that has charged Saraki for all the corruption cases against him and not any individual, group or party. It is absolutely not a ‘party affair’ thing, and the President, albeit, an APC member lacks the constitutional power to do what he being ask to do because the State is the superstructure and it’s above every citizen!”
“Should it be that Senators are requesting that the President should use his veto power, then it will confirm that Nigeria is indeed moving in a state of motionless motion. Such a move by President the will be tantamount to returning to the dark days when former President Goodluck Jonathan granted ‘presidential pardon’ to his benefactor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former governor of Bayelsa state who was impeached on allegations of corruption on 9 December 2005, jailed in the United Kingdom and convicted in Nigeria over same reasons.”
“Again, let it be said, that, this is another litmus test for the anti-corruption drive in the country as far as we are concerned in CACOL, and we state clearly here that should Saraki’s case at CCT or his other corruption cases be dropped, it will sound the death knell of the anti-corruption drive!”
“As appalling as the call is, it demonstrates that it is Nigerians in their different social formations that can indeed fight corruption at the end of the day. We have seen regimes in the past and their different approaches to fighting corruption, and our experience reveals that if the people leave the fight to the government and its agencies alone, the whole anti-corruption efforts would most likely come to nullity.”
“Therefore we call on Nigerians to resist this attempt to insult and toy with our collective intelligence. We must call for all corruption cases to be pursued to judicial and logical conclusions no matter who is involved. We only need to ask why the so-called honourable senators prefer their option of dropping the case against Saraki rather than asking him to defend himself at CCT if he has not committed any crime.”
“The aberration Nigerians massively voted against is what the APC senators actually want to sustain with this illegitimate and unrepresentative call. This is a conspiracy of the apparently corrupt senators to lord their self interests over Public interest. The call by the senators also portrays a shameful solidarity of the dubious characters in the Red Chamber given that they recognize that should the ‘axe of justice’ fall on Saraki, many others who have several corruption allegations against them would suffer similar fate.”
“Nigerians must let the narrow-minded senators know that Nigeria does not belong to any political party as a property or commodity that can be traded on the basis of political intrigues and internal wrangling of any group or person. We have a constitution that we are duty bound to comply with and must not circumvent! We say an emphatic NO to dropping corruption charges against Bukola Saraki and every other suspected corruption criminals!
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