APC is pushing its luck on Saraki — Sen Urhoghide

Senator Matthew Urhoghide, Chairman, Senate Committee on Culture and Tourism was before now, the Publicity Secretary of the Edo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. In this interview, he spoke on the development in the Senate, the embattled Senate President Bukola Saraki and how the PDP would take over the Senate Presidency if Saraki is removed, among others.


What is your take on the trial of the Senate President at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT?

It is quite an unfortunate issue. On these accusations and the CCT matter concerning the Senate President, I see it as a misgiving that people can be persecuted for just taking the initiative to be what they want to be politically. Again, I see it as a complete slide in the development of our national institutions particularly the National Assembly and to think of it that we in the Senate, who are supposed to be distinguished Nigerians are not allowed to make our free choice.

So, if you have this attitude at the back of the mind that this is the reason for all of this persecution, then of course one is completely taken aback and one feels sorry that things like this can still happen in this country. Some of you have been in court, you have seen what is going on and the drama; the background of all of this is because Senator Bukola Saraki is the Senate President otherwise they will not go and dig up issues under the guise of the law saying that it doesn’t matter how long it is that you can be brought to book.

Quality support

These excuses are after thought and I want to say that as a body, as an institution, we have no regret about our support for him. More than before, the quality support he enjoys in the Senate is even more because all of us feel insulted by the persecution that is going on.Matthew Urhoghide

If Saraki isn’t Senate President we can all make a free choice and whoever we choose will become president, but right now the position of the Senate President isn’t vacant.

He is going to stay there for four years and that is what we want and of course if justice has to be pursued on the altar of fairness I don’t think anything will happen to him because these are flimsy excuses. Those of us in PDP have resolved to support him. Saraki doesn’t belong to the same party with us, but we have a strong resolve to support him to the end and our support for him is total.

Based on our conviction, the first day we were going to make him Senate President we saw him as first among equals and since he became Senate President he has been able to dignify the Senate and every senator.

We have been doing our work consciously and this support is for someone who has supported the present administration of President Buhari.

Look at the way he brought the list of ministers, look at how expeditiously we have pursued the budget. It has never happened before, we have done this thing with speed because that is his own style and that is why he said let us make a difference. For him now to be pushed around, we have learned our lessons and we believe that it is time we call a spade a spade.

The turning point has been made that the Senate and House of Representatives should be able to choose their presiding officers without hindrance because the presiding officers – the Senate President, Deputy Senate President are our own, they are to preside over our affairs, it isn’t a political party that will decide for us.

If tomorrow, two third majority of us decide to remove him, we will remove him because we believe he isn’t performing well, but if it is given to you by a political party, the party will decide the entry and exit course and we won’t get our right desires and Nigerians won’t benefit maximally from the representation.

Anybody that is thinking that they will remove Saraki by means of the law court or by whatever means they just must be joking. I want to say that on behalf of my colleagues, those of us that have strongly resolved, and I also read in the press that they are shopping for a replacement; there is no shopping for replacement.

The APC alone can’t decide as a party who will become Senate President. It is we that will decide; and majorly we PDP will decide who becomes Senate President. I hope you know what the configuration is right now; 57:51 (46 five PDP seats awaiting rerun). So we need only four and amongst the APC senators I tell you we will get over 20 of them that will support our course so there is no way.

But the senators accompanying Senator Saraki to the CCT have thinned out. Initially up to 75 senators, but at the last time they were less than 25?

I want to say that you should be mindful that we are on a break. Those of us that are here are committee members. If your committee doesn’t have any reason to be here, it is next Tuesday (today) that we are resuming plenary and of course thank God too that on the 18th we are going to the court and we are going to see subsequently the number that will support him.

So the number hasn’t reduced at all in fact I think he is even getting more support and the support we are getting from the Nigerian public is momentous, we are very grateful for it because our constituents are sending messages to us and on the social media the support that is given to him now is unprecedented and those people will soon find out that they are making a mistake, they are making a hero out of him.

Should the Senate President be forced out can we imagine the PDP producing his replacement?

Let me tell you something the APC must take their mind to the fact that the first time we decided to make Saraki the president we had the appropriate opportunity of having a PDP Senate President and that hasn’t dimmed. We decided that it isn’t conventional for a party that is in opposition to produce Senate President but you can see that the APC is pushing their luck to far and they are showing a lot of naivety and you can see a lot of political immaturity in their decisions because they are pursuing one person.

This was the same person that led 17 senators out of the PDP to join APC and this is the same person that contributed in his own little effort to the emergence of APC at the federal level and even in most of the states in the north and today you are vilifying him and you say no he has no choice.

Request to the National Assembly

They need to be careful otherwise PDP will teach them a lesson and the issue Mr. President has being having with all his request to the National Assembly particularly to the Senate of course you know at that time we will start playing politics with them and that would be difficult and I want to say what if we were to follow merit not all the ministers would have been passed because we saw the shortcomings of a lot of them, but because we wanted to respect the wish of Mr. President…the budget that was brought that was bleeding with a lot of faults they came in and they begged us let us do it the way the president wants.

There are a lot of things we have done against the back drop of what happened at AMCON and again the appointment of a new helmsman at FIRS. You can see the shortcomings in those appointments but of course we decided to overlook them.

They resumed jobs before they were confirmed by the Senate but heavens didn’t fall. We allowed them because the Senate President said let us move along, this whole process is about learning but if we wanted to take it seriously we won’t have passed a lot of those people and confirmed them but we confirmed them based on nothing.