Senate Leadership Crisis Worsens

Senate leadership crisis worsens

on July 26, 2015

*Waku fingers top APC leader in EFCC invitation of Saraki’s wife

By Emma Ujah and Joseph Erunke, Abuja

The battle for the leadership of the Senate appears far from being over as the group loyal to Senator Ahmed Lawan are said to be unrelenting in the effort to impeach Senate President Bukola Saraki and his deputy, Senator Ike Ekweremadu.

Senator Bokola Saraki and Ahmad Lawan

Lawan was a strong contender for the Senate presidency and was, in fact, anointed by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the party which produced Saraki but with Ekweremadu from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The Lawan group’s move, it was learnt, at the weekend, was to instigate the arrest of Saraki and Ekweremadu on spurious allegations or harass the Senate President to the point of yielding to the removal of his deputy at the plenary of the upper chamber.

Sources said that President Muhammadu Buhari was being insinuated into the alleged plot with a view to getting government’s support to use state apparatus, including the EFCC, the DSS and the police, against the Senate chief helmsman.

A source linked the invitation extended to Mrs. Toyin Saraki, wife of the Senate President, by the EFCC, last week, as part of the alleged plot.

Meanwhile, an APC chieftain, Senator Joseph Waku,yesterday, fingered a top member of the party of being behind the invitation of Mrs Saraki by the EFCC.

Waku, a frontline leader of Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, said the APC leader was the mastermind of what he called “a baseless petition” against Saraki’s wife. The politician,in a statement in Abuja,insisted that the APC leader, a former governor, was exploring his personal relationship with the EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde, to embarrass, and torment fellow party members as well as overheat the polity.

He said he was highly disturbed that EFCC was being dragged into the political arena to settle political scores. “ This cannot continue if we must convince Nigerians and the international community that we deserve their support.”