– Bukola Saraki, the Senate president, allegedly searches for assistance from President Buhari and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)
– Saraki’s meeting with the vice president during Buhari’s vacation may be considered as an indirect approach, a government source says
– Saraki and Buhari meet regularly for discussing the matters of nationwide importance, but CCT trial is a issue, an aide to the Senate president comments
Following the Supreme Court judgment on Saraki’s trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, some indications have emerged that the Senate president tries to reach President Buhari and Bola Tinubu.
A top government source told a reporter of The Sunday Punch that Saraki could not reach out directly to Buhari on the matter because he knew the president’s disposition to such issues. The unnamed source continued:
“Saraki knows the kind of person the president is, and I think he won’t approach him directly on this matter.
“But yes, I can tell you that he is reaching out indirectly.
“Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, however, made it equivocally clear to them that the two issues could not be mixed. He told them that the issue of the budget was different from the trial of Saraki.”
READ ALSO: Saraki won’t resign: What Senate leader said after closed-door meeting with Vice President Osinbajo
As concerns the APC leader, then Saraki is reportedly contacting various opinion leaders and clerics to facilitate the visit to Tinubu, at his home in Bourdillon, Ikoyi, Lagos. However, another anonymous source of The Punch said communication on the matter is unlikely:
“Access from Saraki’s camp has been blocked. Tinubu has been disappointed in every way. It was the party that picked Ahmed Lawan. He was not Tinubu’s initial candidate but he did it all the same.
“So, he has decided to (wash his) hands and will not say a word again regarding Saraki.
“Efforts have intensified since Saraki’s recent CCT trouble but Tinubu has been out of the country. He has been in Guinea for the last five days.
“We have been informed that Saraki is working with a team of people in Ilorin that will storm Lagos. Top leaders there including Muslim clerics are being put together to visit Lagos and mediate on his behalf but Tinubu is not interested.”
The two have their relations spoilt since June 2015. Saraki ignored the APC’s tactics and got elected as the Senate president under controversial circumstances.
During the year, Tinubu’s favourites failed to receive significant offices at the Senate. In his return, Tinubu stopped active communication with Saraki, considers him as an ‘indisciplined and disloyal man who is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party in soul’.
READ ALSO: Saraki’s trial resumes March 10
Yusuf Olaniyonu, the special adviser to the Senate president on media and publicity, said that Saraki and Buhari have regular meetings on the issues of national interest. Last time they saw each other on Thursday, when hosting the German president at the Aso Rock.
He denied the possibility Saraki would be asking the president for a separate audience in order to discuss the issue of the CCT trial.
Bukola Saraki has allegedly made false assets declaration in his forms at the Code of Conduct Bureau as a two-term governor of Kwara state.
The trial resumes on Thursday, March 10.
Source : Link N
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