The trial of Bukola Saraki’s loyalty – Jude Ndukwe

Loyalty is a key ingredient in power. It is an ingredient that requires believers in a cause, institution or person to stay true to the cause at all times by thinking, talking, walking and working for the realisation and promotion of the cause, institution or person.

It is easy to remain loyal as long as there is absence of friction and clash of interests. However, situations can arise and circumstances can develop that might lead to the testing of one’s loyalty at any point in time.

When such occasion arises, the position one takes goes a long way in determining whether the person being tested is loyal or not. So, in the test of loyalty, one is usually torn between two extremely burdensome decisions: to remain true to one’s principles and beliefs which would eventually advance the cause of the whole or to blindly follow the whole even when one knows that the road being followed could eventually plunge the whole group into perdition.

Loyalty is not to follow blindly, loyalty is to stand out and take decisions that help the whole even when it seems incorrect to others initially. With time one’s position would eventually come to be appreciated. It is like that everywhere. Many leaders have been reviled and mortified even by their own people only for them to be canonised later and the cause for which they were denigrated beatified.

It is in light of this that one must commend the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki for the way he handled the recently concluded ministerial screening by the Senate.

Despite the diverse powerful interests that piled pressure on him, the Senate President seemed to have applied uncommon wisdom in handling the screening to the admiration of a majority of Nigerians. Surely, it was not an easy task, nor could it have been for anybody, yet, he successfully concluded the exercise admirably.

Having emerged Senate President despite opposition from some leaders of his ruling party, and enjoying the overwhelming support of the opposition PDP senators, Saraki has since been and remained in the eye of the storm.

To punish him for his “sin”, he was immediately dragged before the Code of Conduct Tribunal for various offences. His trial, no doubt, has been conducted with palpable vindictiveness, vendetta and an atmosphere devoid of judicial sanity.

Although the APC continues to deny it, everyone has come to the inevitable conclusion of what everybody knows but only few are bold enough to say it: Saraki is being persecuted for emerging the Senate President. Simple!

One of the arguments against him was that he was not going to be loyal and that having emerged president of the Senate with the full support of opposition PDP Senators, he would work to frustrate the government of president Buhari and be an impediment to the implementation of the party’s manifesto.

No one would blame the ruling party for entertaining such fears really. It is their right to do so, but with events of recent days, it is obvious that Saraki would not jettison the programme or manifesto of the party on whose platform he rose to the height he occupies today.

The recent ministerial screening was the biggest test of his loyalty to both President Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC). Having suffered extreme humiliation, harassment and embarrassment at the CCT trial, one would have thought that Saraki, just like any other person, would pull all the plugs in his power to fight back especially when he knew that no singular party could muster enough numerical strength to get him impeached.

One would have expected him to deliberately set in motion processes that would either embarrass some of the president’s ministerial nominees or cause their outright rejection by the Senate. And just with a hit of the gavel, Saraki could easily have had his way.

But rather than seek vengeance, Saraki proved an extremely loyal party man by not only ensuring that all the nominees were cleared, he also shielded the nominees from embarrassment that could have arisen from the opposition senators.

A clear but equally contentious case in sight was the case of former governor Rotimi Amaechi against whom the PDP senators came all out to stop his confirmation. Risking flaks from the vociferous PDP senators, Saraki went as far as ensuring that the report of the Senate’s Ethics and Privileges Committee which obviously had indicted Amaechi was not tabled for debate before he could be screened.

Allowing that report to be tabled for debate would have sounded a definite death knell on President Buhari’s favourite nominee. Saraki tactfully prevented that from happening to the chagrin and consternation of the PDP senators who staged a walk out immediately in protest.

What else can a party ask from its Senate President? The reason another candidate might have been preferred was because the party wanted loyal party men to occupy such positions for them. This, Saraki has shown he can do in abundance, both for them and for Nigerians.

Having stabilised the Senate since its inauguration in the current dispensation, especially after the storms that followed, it would be absolutely unwise for the party to keep thinking of upsetting the apple cart.

With the number of opposition members in the senate, it would be better for the party to allow Saraki some peace as he has been able to win the trust and understanding of a majority of his fellow APC senators and enjoy the camaraderie of PDP senators.

For APC to succeed with matters that need two third majority of the senate to scale through, they need a man who already has the capacity to pull this through, and with the benefit of hindsight, that man is Dr Bukola Saraki. He is not going to prove it, he has already proven it.

To continue to persecute him will amount to being politically naive and unnecessarily bellicose. And to think that replacing him as Senate President would lead to a stable Senate needed to support the president and the party would amount to living in a fool’s paradise.

The reason for Fashola’s prayer never to have his loyalty tested is that no one can actually predict his reaction when his loyalty is tested except the one who has actually been tested.

Saraki’s loyalty has been severely and severally tested, and on all occasions, he has proved himself a loyal party man, a patriotic Nigerian and a mild-tempered Senate President who will not allow his personal interests to influence his official functions or decisions.

The saint one has come to know is better than the angel one does not know. An Igbo proverb says that when sleep becomes enjoyable, we snore. Let Saraki be. Let the Senate function. Let Nigeria work, so that we can all keep snoring. To do otherwise is to turn our sleep into a nightmare!

Jude Ndukwe can be reached on [email protected] and on Twitter: @stjudendukwe

————————–

Contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of EchoNaija