Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, has hinted that his stay or otherwise in the ruling All Progressives Congress will be determined by time.
He dropped the hint at the weekend during a farewell dinner hosted by him in Abuja, in honour of participants at the just concluded International Press Institute (IPI) World Congress.
Saraki’s reaction followed a comment by the Chairman, Daily Trust Newspapers, Malam Kabiru Yusuf, who commended him for going to Saudi Arabia for the lesser Hajj, and Moscow where he addressed the Russian parliament, and quickly returned home to attend the APC convention “a party to which he belongs but which increasingly does not belong to him.” But in his response, the Senate President said: “Kabiru made a comment and said that he welcomes me as a member of the party, and further said he is not sure if the party welcomes me as much as I welcome them.
“I am not going to comment on that because I will be here all night commenting on that.
I won’t like to be the front page story but time will tell on that.
“Already, based on this comment, I know most newspapers’ headlines would be ‘time will tell’.
So I won’t be surprised if I check ThisDay newspapers and I see: ‘The Senate President says time will tell’.” Commenting on the IPI World Congress being hosted in Africa, the lawmaker expressed optimism that such opportunity to have the congress in the continent will also surface in the near future.
He expressed delight at the convergence of the world’s best journalists, editors and media executives on Nigeria to brainstorm on ‘Why Good Journalism Matters: Quality Media For Strong Societies.’ “This, I believe, will make for better understanding of Nigerians and Africans in the eyes of the international media.
When international journalists themselves come in our midst and get the right position about Africa, the image of our continent will start to improve in the eyes of the world out there,” Saraki explained.
Facing the journalists, he said they cannot but agree with him that “negative stereotypes of the so-called ‘dark continent’ had been the lots of Africa for too long, describing them as misconceptions.
According to him, “this has had an unfortunate effect on the development of Africa, as well as the sense of pride and dignity of young Africans down the ages.” “In those cases where there may have been some truth in them, what we also know is that culture is not static.
Some things that may have been true of Nigeria in the 1930s are no longer the case in the Nigeria of today.
We can say much the same about America in many respects, or indeed of any place else.”
