No peace in Senate until Saraki relinquishes position – Ibrahim

Following the Senate President Bukola Saraki’s defection to the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), senators on the platform of the APC have asked him to honourably relinquish his position or be forced out .
Senator Abu Ibrahim (APC Katsina South) in this interview with Taiye Odewale states reason.
What would be your reaction to the defection of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, to PDP from APC? “Well, I’m not surprised with his defection.
I think it is commendable that he has left the party.
He has chosen the path of survival because it is the issue of political survival not anything for Nigeria.
But next is for him to resign as Senate President because by all conventions all over the world the majority party produces the leadership; Senate President, the majority leader and others.
So, he needs to be gentlemanly by relinquishing his position as Senate President before resumption in September.

smBut what of if he decides to continue as Senate President since there is no c o n s t i t u t i o n a l provision or rules forbidding him to forge ahead in that capacity? If he doesn’t resign, we will never have peace in that Senate because it is absolutely clear that the APC has majority to produce the leadership.
I hear the PDP claiming majority but it is crystal clear that APC has majority.
We will even have more members before the resumption either from defectors from PDP or winning the two vacant seats in the State when elections are conducted for the two seats this month by INEC aside the alliance we have with the two APGA Senators.
The foregoing shows that it is clear that the APC has majority in the Senate with 53 senators on ground, expecting two from the slated elections and expected defectors from PDP.
Therefore, the APC with majority should produce the leadership in the Senate anytime it reconvenes because the PDP with its 49 Senators cannot produce the leadership, the very reason Saraki should go the whole hog after his defection from the APC by resigning his position as Senate President.
If the leadership does There are some losses that will give you sleepless night.
There are others that will not give you sleepless night.
We have made our calculations, I am confident that that we will not lose in 2019 despite the so called, defectors.
not ask for peace, it will not get peace.
Peace is a function of leadership.
I have been in the Senate for about four times.
I can’t allow anybody to manipulate me.
I can’t take it.
Nobody was elected as Senate President.
We all came here as Senators.
So we have equal footing.
If anybody is given the position of leadership and fails to give the right leadership and the majority of those who gave him are saying we don’t want you any more, the troubled leader has to leave.
Saraki assumed that position for being a member of the APC then and now that he has dumped the party for another one and the party still controls majority of the seats in the Senate, he just have to resign for peace to reign.

Could it be the reason why some APC senators allegedly attempted to force themselves into the Senate chambers 48 hours after Saraki’s defection for the purposes of impeaching him? How do you break into the chamber? If we like we can reconvene legally because it is legal for us to reconvene.
We don’t need to break into the chamber when we have the number.
I will never subscribe to that.
We can reconvene; the rules are there that if we are up to 30 we can reconvene.
Why should we break into the chamber when we can reconvene legally and do what we want to do? I don’t see why anybody should contemplate that we attempted breaking into the chamber.
I don’t know about it and even if I know about it I will say it is unwise.
Like I said, the rules are there that if we are 30 we can reconvene and do what we want to do.
But to impeach the Senate President, 2/3 of the entire membership of the Senate which will be 73 out of 109, is required? All I know is that Saraki was elected Senate President in 2015 because of being a member of the party with majority seats and now that he has defected to a party with lesser seats in the Senate, he cannot definitely think that the majority would allow him to carry on in that capacity and that is the resign why the best option for him is to resign for peace to reign.
Finally, don’t you think that the gale of defection hitting your party now portends danger for it in 2019 elections? There are some losses that will give you sleepless night.
There are others that will not give you sleepless night.
We have made our calculations, I am confident that that we will not lose in 2019 despite the so called, defectors.
Take Saraki for example, for the past two years, he has been using his position as Senate President to undermine the government.
He has allowed frivolous motions to be moved on the floor of the Senate to attack the President and the government.
His continued stay as Senate President does not augur well for the APC government.
Image somebody in the same party and the same government not known to have seen anything good in the President.
The exits of such people from the party, to me, do not portend any danger but gives room for the required cohesion and unity of purpose in the party upon which it will face the electorates in 2019 as a united family and of course, emerge victorious.

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