I Regret Ekweremadu’s Emergence As My Deputy – Saraki Laments
Blaming the absence of some All Progressives Congress (APC) senators at the inauguration session on that fateful day for the election of Ekweremadu, he added that all through the period when he and his team were strategising for his election to the Senate president’s seat, not even for once did they anticipate that a Senator from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will emerge as his deputy.
Speaking with some Senate correspondents yesterday, Saraki said it is not true that he entered into any pact with the PDP to sacrifice the deputy Senate slot for PDP’s support. “Never in our wildest imagination did we envisage that some senators would not be present on the day of the inauguration.
“In my own view, and in the view of some of those who worked closely with me, I worked hard for my election, I had direct contact with every single senator, one on one. Weeks leading to the election I did not rely on anybody. I worked hard; both in our party, the APC and out of it.
“I approached every senator, I talked to them…we built confidence, not only in the APC, but, also, in the PDP. I talked to them. That was why I laugh when people said I had a deal with Ekweremadu or I had a hand in the emergence of Ekweremadu.
“I didn’t need any deal to win. I had penetrated…There was no deal; I didn’t need any deal in the first place. I had worked hard such that every body who was a senator, I campaigned hard and canvassed for their votes and won their confidence.
“At one of the meetings held at Transcorp Hilton which Senator Godswill Akpabio co-chaired with Senator Ibrahim Gobir and a few others, which had both APC and PDP members, at that meeting, if you heard most of them there, the position they took was that ‘this is the Senate president they want.’
Across party lines, they believed in me that this is the Senate president that can lead us. There was no deal.
“Sometimes, I wonder how some of our colleagues found themselves at the ICC. If it had been a case that the CNA (clerk of the National Assembly) had made an announcement that the event had been postponed or it was no longer holding, plus, the invitation, it would have been different. I’m sure some are asking now,what really happened,” Saraki said.
Speaking further, he said “First of all, the PDP senators had announced to the public that they were supporting me without even meeting me because in their own meeting, the majority had decided to vote for me. In their own interest, strategically, they decided that, look, this is a fait accompli because 30 of their own senators were going to vote for this man anyway and the remaining felt it was better to join.
It wasn’t until 2:00am that they called us to tell us their decision. With regards to the deputy, when they told us that they had a candidate, we, too, told them we had a candidate for deputy Senate president in the person of Senator Ali Ndume. After our own meeting, it was our thinking that it was after the election of the Senate president that the two groups in APC would meet and we would agree on a candidate. We never in our imagination thought they would not turn up. By the time we got there, we were only 24 while the PDP was more than 40. In an election, there’s no way they would not have defeated us and that was what happened.
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