Go Saraki, go!! Rejoinder to the article by Bukola Saraki

Mr Dear Senate President,
My attention was drawn to an article published by Premium Times of Saturday 23^rd April 2016 which was your rejoinder to a previous one by our “fair-weather, money-for hand” well known politico-journalist, Dele Momodu. These are obviously not the best of times for you, Mr Saraki. Thus, it is with pleasure that I was able to delve into the inner workings of your mind especially during this trying time. I need to inform you that Dele Momodu, your brother as you described him, will definitely have his comeuppance for his yeoman’s jobs on behalf of corrupt entities. He has expended the payment from Madam Diezani and felt the time was ripe to reap from your stolen billions. It is often said that a friend of a thief is also a thief.

As good as it is to hear from you during this season of anomie, nevertheless, your mind-set as reflected in your rejoinder is a great source of sorrow and worries. A period of crisis is challenging to any mortal and you have, by this write-up acknowledged that you are indeed a mere mortal. At a point, I must confess, I was really wondering if you were! Truly, you may be prolific at looting public funds, yet you are just human and does tremble at the determination of your political enemies to exact their pound of flesh. It may take so long Mr Saraki, yet the hen has a habit of finally coming home to roost. This is a fact and the truth of your current debacle.

Your long article can be summed up into seven parts and these will be dealt with sequentially.

1. You insisted that your ascendancy into the Senate Presidency was not a fallout of your backstabbing of your party by entering into unholy deals with the PDP. You likened your pyrrhic victory to the outcome of a football match where the other party failed to turn up. It is interesting that to you the contest for Senate Presidency is akin to a mere football match. Even then, we all do know that where another club failed to turn up with tangible excuses in a match (you rightly admitted that members of your party were at a meeting), postponement is often an option. Especially in a sensitive political contest, the option of postponement sounds very ethical. Did this ever cross your mind and that of your co-conspirators at that period in time? The other pertinent issue bothers on party discipline. I know this may sound alien to you. Yes, there is something called party discipline which is a vital ingredient of democracy. It nourishes and sustains democracy. Where a political party refuses to field a candidate, the honourable option is to accept the party’s decision or if dissatisfied, leave the party and make alternative political choices. With your uncontrolled ambition, this was not an option. You were so heady and recalcitrant. While Nigerians were celebrating the end of the years of PDP’s despoliation of our land, you were so determined to truncate the gains at the expense of your personal ambitions. Yet, you opened your mouth to claim that you made decisions in the best interest of Nigeria.

1. Your second submission relates to the zoning of and appointment of leadership positions in the senate. You submitted inter alia: “What was not acknowledged was that the president of the Senate is not an executive president. He is primarily one of 109 senators. Therefore, I cannot decide by myself who gets what in the Senate”. True indeed, yet you have the power and influence as the Senate President to influence selections and appointments a demonstrated by your coy attitude and tolerance of the chicanery attitude of senators from the PDP. You had no power to appoint yet was able to create so many committees and actually made confounding appointments such that every senator is either a chairman or vice-chairman of one committee or the other. Are you not smartly trying to turn the truth on its face by your attempt to minimize your refusal to obey party directives and insubordination to your party’s constituted authority? At that point in time, you made no efforts to reach out to your party, you turned yourself into a force majeure and brimmed of pride and arrogance. It was a period of “what can they do to me”. Mr Saraki, the truth is that at the peak of your intoxication, you left many wondering at what gave you such rock-solid confidence that made you feel above party discipline. You behaved as if APC was one distinct body while you represent another. You gallivanted all over the place without sensitivity and with scant respect for the feelings of Nigerians who wanted complete end to the relevance of that scrummage party called PDP. Despite being resoundingly defeated at the polls, you ensured that PDP remains relevant in our national affairs.

1. You also opined, contrary to your numerous assertions that your current travail arose as a result of your headstrong determination to enforce yourself on the senate. I remember vividly your statement on your first attendance at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT). You stated and I quote: “I am here today because I am the Senate President”. You wanted the world to believe that you were being persecuted for your effrontery. However, with this new explanation, you must have had time to think and conjure another excuse that may appeal to emotions. “Most people talk about the Senate Presidency position, but this was not my only offence. I have also been accused of helping to frustrate some people’s opportunity to emerge as President Muhammadu Buhari’s running mate. My concern was that it would not be politically smart of us to run with a Muslim-Muslim ticket” While you lack the courage to clearly state who this your persecutor is, from your barely hidden statement, it is clear that you refer to Bola Tinubu. Suffice it to say that your opposition to Tinubu’s laughable ambition could not have been the sole reason while his desire was stillborn. Nigerians as a whole rose against it. And for your information, Tinubu was not rejected solely on the basis of Muslim-Muslim combination but simply because he does not fit the bill. He is no better than you are, perhaps smarter. Your additional excuse is rather far-fetched and untenable. The only plausible reason is your intransigence, recalcitrance, wilfulness and unbridled ambition coupled with improper upbringing and indiscipline.

1. Since you found a willing comrade in Dele Momodu. You were emboldened to declare that your trial is not about corruption – “…….this trial is not about corruption. I have had opportunity to declare my assets four times since 2003. Over those years, the Code of Conduct Bureau had examined my claims. This is why you should be surprised that while I am being tried by the Code of Conduct Tribunal ….” If your trial was not about corruption, pray, what is it all about? Since the trial started, we have been regaled with nothing but endless tales of corruption and corrupt practices. Mr Saraki, you have been attending court sittings, have you not been listening? Probably more pre-occupied with slumber as reported by various newspapers? You were not tried since 2003 as Nigeria was under the grip of corrupt administrations. For example, it is difficult to imagine an administration that cleared that stealing is not corruption to put an expert thief like yourself on trial. That you escaped for so long did not eradicate your offence. It did not mean that you did not commit a crime. You have been accused amongst others of anticipatory declaration of assets, corrupt acquisition of assets, corrupt enrichment and other nefarious activities. So far, you have failed to address these. Your attitude speaks volume of the abhorrent practises of public office holders in Nigeria. Despite the current hullabaloo, you have so far seen nothing wrong in the heinous offences listed against you. You are still busy shedding crocodile tears about political perception.
2. Like most criminals, you also sought solace in justice. The same justice you demonstrated scant respect for. “….However, the onus is not on me to prove that I have confidence in the judiciary; the burden is on my prosecutors to prove to the world that justice is done in my case” Let me hasten to add that the onus is also on your prosecutors to prove to the teeming Nigerian masses who have been massively and criminally exploited by your ilk that justice has finally arrived to deal with the looters of our common wealth. Your case is the first classical action against the supposedly untouchables. You (and your criminal family) have gotten away with uncountable atrocities against the Nigerian nation. We have not developed amnesia about the Society Generale bank saga. Neither have we forgotten the issue of the Trade Bank. We have been regaled with unbelievable accounts of your perfidy and unfathomable hunger for corruption and corrupt practices. The list appear to be endless. And obviously, what our ears have been exposed to represents just a tip of the iceberg. Unlike other Nigerians, I still do not share their belief and faith in our judicial system. Your ominous last statement actually confirms my fear – “justice does not end with this tribunal”. Your confidence at your ability to manipulate the justice system is appalling and vexatious. You hold scant regard for the feelings of your country men and can still afford to boast about using the same justice system to satisfy your end. Despite everything, you are convinced that somewhere around the corner is a willing judge, ready to sell justice and do your bidding. You are still shopping around for justice!

1. You also spoke about your fervent need for justice – “….Some people have wondered, why has Saraki been “jumping” from one court to another instead of facing his trial? To those people, I would say that I have only gone to those courts in search of justice” Yes, shopping around for justice even after the epileptic Supreme Court had declared that you had a case to answer. You found comfort is using the case of Tinubu to justify your sense of persecution. The key thing is that your jumping from court to court is a mockery of yourself and our judicial system. Your ultimate goal is to evade justice and prevent further public revelation of your monstrous atrocities. If truly a section of the law establishing the Code of Conduct Bureau allows written admission of corrupt practices without consequences, it is high time same was reviewed. Be rest assured that Tinubu’s sins will still be visited on him. He has never been viewed as saint in Nigeria and will never be. For now, it is your turn to pay the penalty and hopefully, this may be the beginning of enthronement of sanity in public offices in our dear country.

1. The other issue is your persistent abuse of your unmerited office. You have surreptitiously turned your trial to the trial of the Senate of the Federal Republic. “Some people have complained that I have been taken Senators with me to my trial. But I did not force them to follow me. The Senators have freely accompanied me to the Tribunal not because they are loyal to me as Abubakar Bukola Saraki, but because they are committed to the principle that produced me as the President of the Senate……” Another attempt at turning truth on its head. They have been following you simply because this is the most corrupt and useless senate we have ever had. Nigeria has never had it so bad. With a senate containing the likes of Sanni Yerima (the child abuser), Dino Melaye (the boy-boy of corruption) and so many others, Nigeria entered a one-chance bus without realising it. We do not have a senate as it is. What we have is the opportunistic conglomeration of criminal who succeeded in fooling their senatorial districts to get elected into public offices. This odium was not limited by party affiliation and those who have called for the scrapping of this mess have a strong point. Mr Saraki, you reek so much of corruption that everything about you stink. Whatever you lay your hands on dazzles with the aroma of corruption. Such is the case that you have been able to fertilize and galvanize the latent seeds of corruption amongst the criminals in the senate such that whole place stinks.

Bukola Saraki, what I have read is the inner working of a narcissistic and grandiose mind, one that lacks insight and remains unrepentant about years of pilferage and crime against the Nigerian nation. You remained unrepentant despite the many revelations of your perfidies. You simply refused to see the opportunity to atone for your many years of sins. To you, the fact that you stole so extensively is irrelevant, it is all just mere political persecution.

You referred frequently to an un-named person whose political ambition you believed you truncated. Apparently, this person has remained your albatross so far. One fair question to ask is why enter into a battle you knew you could not win? Why take on a political superior when you were least prepared? The person you referred to is not in government yet is able to cause you so much grief. So many years of political banditry, pilferage, despoliation and thievery would certainly have an end date. Your end date appear to be around the corner. You represent everything bad in a politician – greed, avarice, unbridled ambition, indiscipline and corruption. You are narcissistic in orientation, presentation and disposition. You also have improper upbringing. As your family was busy stealing government funds and causing tears and miseries to millions of people via failed banks, you grew up believing that it is just right to steal.

It is amazing that out of the cacophony of voices that have been reverberating around the world since your embarrassing trial started, it is only the one of Dele Momodu that touched you most. We all know Dele Momodu for what he is, principle-less journalist desperate for lucre at all costs. His words mean nothing to serious minded Nigerians. It would enrich you better if you listen and akin to the voice of the masses. And what they are saying is that now is the time for you to depart from our political space. No other time is better than now. Leave Bukola Saraki, leave. Resign now as Senate President!! Now is the time to go!!!

I can only end this piece by asking you to give it same time and consideration as you devoted to that trash from Dele Momodu. Mine is another end of the piece, the voice of tired and frustrated Nigerians. All we are asking as “children of anger” (as we have been amply defined by that turncoat called Reuben Abati), is to see your departure from our national affairs. When a house is quiet, the bastard child is asleep. Nigeria is now in uproar because one bastard child is awake. Save us this embarrassment. Save us this disgrace. Go Bukola Saraki, go!!!!

I remain
Yours Sincerely
Dr Olusegun Fakoya (A concerned and affected Nigerian)