Plans are on underground by the senators elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party to ensure the emergence of one of them as the President of the Senate if the embattled incumbent, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, is removed as a result of his ongoing trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal.
Saraki is standing trial at the CCT over alleged false declaration of assets. Saraki has already started distancing himself from President Muhammadu Buhari recently.
This was evident when he shunned the National Executive Committee meeting of their party, the All Progressives Congress.
At the NEC meeting, no member of the APC from Kwara State was also present, a development insiders said signifies that Saraki might have resolved to declare a full scale war on Buhari who has refused to intervene in his trial at the CCT.
PDP Senators had on Wednesday held a meeting on various issues affecting the party and Saraki’s trial at the CCT.
Alluding to Saraki’s preparedness to engage President Buhari in a duel was the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Peter Nwaboshi, who on Wednesday vowed that the PDP would produce the next Senate president in the event that the incumbent was forced out of office.
Nwaboshi, who is a Saraki loyalist in the Senate, in an interview with journalists in Abuja decried what he called messages of blackmail against the Senate president on account of his trial at the CCT.
He said the PDP was ready to replicate the current system in the United States of America where the Republican Party is in charge of the parliament, while the Democrats are in control of the executive.
He said: “Well, I wish APC the best of luck if they are making that wild goose chase.
“But I want you to mark what I’m saying: I was the first to address the press in Port Harcourt and I told them that Saraki was going to win the Senate presidency and I gave them my reasons.
“Then, nobody ever thought that Saraki was going to win.
“People were saying that APC had decided.
“But it was clear to me that he was going to win and I had to address the press.
“I said Saraki was going to win and that he was going to get my vote.
“Eventually, we went there, he won.
“If, but God forbid, because we don’t see it coming, by chance Saraki is removed, I can tell you that PDP will produce the next Senate president.”
On how the PDP will get the support of APC senators to win Senate presidency, Nwaoboshi said: “We only need three and we have it.
“The calculation is very clear to me.
“The calculation is very clear for PDP.
“We know what it will take us.
“When I told them that Saraki was going to win, I did a lot of mathematical calculations based on the facts on the ground and it is even clearer to me now that the PDP will win it.
“We will win it.
“If anybody is thinking that a PDP man is going to vote against a PDP candidate, he is telling you a lie.
“We have people and we know how to get the people from APC.
“We will win and that will be very interesting.
“What is happening in America is going to happen in Nigeria.
“America has a Republican Senate but the executive is led by Democrats.
“So, it’s happening in different parts of the world.
“I can tell you with what’s on the ground that we will produce the next Senate President.
“The man (Saraki) is going to court and he is obeying the court order.
“Until it is proven that he is guilty, no amount of blackmail will make us shift our ground and our support for him.
“In any case, my party, the PDP, we have resolved in our meeting to support him.
“So, there is no basis for him to resign.”
It could be recalled that Saraki’s crisis started when he kicked against his party’s position on the Senate Presidency and conceded the Deputy Senate President seat to Ike Ekweremadu (PDP Enugu).
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