I’m not at war with anyone – Tinubu
Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, has intervened in the lingering feud between President Muhammadu BUhari and Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki.
This is just as Sunday Telegraph learnt that notwithstanding the public show of camaraderie among the leadership of the All Progressives Congress, Buhari and the party’s National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, have allegedly forged a secret alliance to ease Saraki out of office.
The plan, Sunday Telegraph learnt, is threefold, the first part of which has already been experimented through the now waning police report on the alleged forgery of the Senate Rules.
The second, considered as political, is a design aimed at branding Saraki and his supporters as ‘enemies’ of the President. The third, according to our source, is that Saraki will be pressurised to throw in the towel once his wife, Toyin, who has been interrogated twice by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, is formally charged to court.
A pro-Saraki senator told our correspondent on the telephone that the Senate president was indeed entangled in a suppressed frosty relationship with Buhari over the manner in which he
emerged as president of the eighth Senate.
emerged as president of the eighth Senate.
According to the senator, who is from the South- West, ‘several clandestine attempts’ have allegedly been made by Tinubu to undermine Saraki’s efforts at reconciliation. Specifically, Saraki was said to have sought the intervention of Sanusi, a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, in the matter.
“What we have seen in the last two months as senators is quite intriguing and undemocratic on the part of some of our leaders.
“Quite honestly, there have been several clandestine attempts by the national leader just to ensure that our leader, the Senate president does not enjoy a rosy and chubby relationship with the President.
“We are aware of the fact that the same persons who instigated the so-called Police investigation into a supposed forgery are up to other means just to ensure that the Senate president is frustrated out of office. “Just last week, we all witnessed what they cooked up that some of were planning with the PDP to undermine President Buhari.
“We know as of matter of fact that in the next one or two weeks, their plot is to insist that the Senate president resigns from office just because the wife is having some sessions with the EFCC and we hope the President will not buy into this because there are disturbing signs. “But we know God is greater than all mortals; and that is why we are trying our best to ensure that whatever it takes for the Senate president to sustain the peace he has spearheaded, we will encourage him to do.
“Already, we are aware that the intervention of the Emir of Kano has been sought and we believe that will help a great deal in dousing the crisis form escalating beyond this level,” he said. However, Tinubu swiftly responded, saying he was not at ar with anyone.
Tinubu, whose views were delivered by an SMS to Sunday Telegraph by his media aide, Sunday Dare, also dismissed Saraki’s directive for the Ethics and Privileges Committee to probe a report in The Nation newspaper, the writer and the publisher.
The report in the paper believed to be owned by Tinubu had alleged that 22 Northern senators elected on APC’s platform were identified to be conspiring with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party to frustrate Buhari and the ruling party.
The report accused the pro-Saraki APC senators of conniving with 46 PDP lawmakers to pass a vote of confidence in the leadership of the Senate under Saraki and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, who is a member of the PDP.
The publication further reported that 35 APC senators were among the 81 legislators that purportedly endorsed the vote of confidence in the principal officers of the Senate, according to the list attached to the motion on vote of confidence moved on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday by Senator Samuel Anyanwu.
“Tinubu is not a reporter or political editor of The Nation or any other publication for that matter. Tinubu is not in any battle with anyone. He has won the war he set out to win politically. 
That is to bring the progressive opposition to power at the national level.
That is to bring the progressive opposition to power at the national level.
After winning that political war everything else pales. What perhaps counts now is how to make the change agenda succeed and to assist President Buhari meet the expectations of Nigerians,” Tinubu’s media aide, Sunday Dare, said in an SMS yesterday.
Meanwhile, some pro- Saraki senators have lauded the Senate president’s reconciliatory moves. Three Saraki’s supporters, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi (Niger North); Senator Peter Nwaboshi (Delta North); and Senator Lanre Tejuosho (Ogun Central) in a statement jointly issued in Abuja, specifically commended Saraki, for his broad-mindedness and the non-partisan approach he had adopted in constituting the committees in the legislative house.
They said it took a peaceloving, patriotic and largehearted leader like Saraki to continue to make reconciliatory moves aimed at harmonising all the tendencies in the legislative chamber. They noted that apart from always reaching out to members of the Unity Group who did not support him during his election, the Senate president had also proved that as a first among equals, it is his responsibility to carry along all senators.
“It was the Senate president’s largeheartedness that made him to give the chairmanship of one of the two influential committees that he has constituted so far to a member of the Unity Forum. “Senator Jide Omoworare from Osun East, a member of the Unity Forum, was last Wednesday named the chairman of the powerful committee on Rules and Business. Also, Senator Kabiru Marafa, the spokesman of the group, was named a member of the same committee.
“The Rules and Business Committee is the engine room of the Senate that directs the activities of the legislative house. That position given to Omoworare is so influential that it is next to being in the leadership of the Senate,” they said.
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