NO RIFT BETWEEN SENATE AND PRESIDENCY;- Senator Wakili...
Tuesday 11/08/2015 Via National Mirror Newspaper

Ali Wakili is the senator representing Bauchi South senatorial district in the upper chamber of the National Assembly. In this interview with selected journalists in Bauchi, he maintains that there is no rift between President Muhammadu Buhari and the Senate President, contrary to reports in some media. EZEKIEL TITUS brings excerpts:

What is your take on the insinuation making the rounds that President Muhammadu Buhari and Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki are engaged in a cold war?

I am getting sick and tired of how some people are trying to destabilise this nation through false propaganda by creating bad blood between the National Assembly and the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. As a senator of the 8th National Assembly, as one of those that supported Senator Saraki, I know for sure that neither I nor Saraki nor any supporter of Saraki has on his table the idea of fighting with the Presidency. The powers of the executive, the Presidency inclusive, that of the legislature, including the Senate and that of the judiciary are spelt out in sections 4,5, and 6 of the constitution. They are very explicit. If you look at the constitution, the powers of National Assembly are in section 5 and the powers of the executive and judiciary are in section 6. Similarly, on issues of oversight functions, you will discover that the National Assembly has oversight functions on all government activities, but that will not warrant that there is going to be a clash between the National Assembly and the Presidency, especially under President Muhammadu Buhari’s watch. We are piqued and tired because our names are being dragged to in the mud. Our constituents are wondering and inundating us with questions, asking why are we quarreling with Mr President? We are taking our time to explain to them that there is no quarrel between the Senate and Mr President. Mr President himself has accepted the Senate Presidency of Saraki, because he has transmitted letters of congratulation to Senator Saraki as Senate President; also about two letters have also been sent by the President to the National Assembly. So, the issue that Mr President not recognizing Senator Saraki is not true. Saraki as a person that has been brought up properly, everyone knows his family’s pedigree. Everyone also knows the powers of the President and recognises Buhari and the constitution of Nigeria and the Senate is not in any way ready to have any clash with Mr President. Forget about the fact that because one permanent secretary, Mrs Nwaobia did not attend to a letter calling on her and the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, governor to attend a meeting with the Senate leadership. This will not amount to us having a quarrel with the Presidency. It has been very normal from the first National Assembly to the seventh Assembly, there have been occasions that when the National Assembly calls on government functionaries to come, sometimes out of one reason or the other, or other expediencies, they don’t have the time to attend. You will recall that former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Maduekwe had to go to court over her refusal to answer the call of National Assembly. If for one reason or the other Mrs Nwaobia did not answer the call of Senate President or the National Assembly leadership, that does not amount to a declaration of war between the Presidency and the Senate. As an ardent supporter of Saraki, neither him nor I nor other members are quarelling with the Presidency. That is the figment of the imagination of those that want to destabilise Nigeria by sending false propaganda to heat up the polity. I am appealing to you to inform Nigerians that no member of the Senate, not even the Senate President, is ready to quarrel with the Presidency over trivialities. Let those of them that are dishing out propaganda have the gear of God. If you have personal scores to settle with Senator Saraki, take him up as Bukola Saraki, don’t take it on all of us in the Senate. There is no quarrel personally between Saraki and President Buhari. There are no institutional clashes between the Senate and the President. Some of these garbbges being sent out through some sections of the media for reasons best known to them should be stopped. They are heating up the polity and I want to assure you that as a serving senator of the eighth Assembly, the Presidency has not transmitted any letter that is requiring the action of the Senate that we have not sat down to look at. Before Saraki left for lesser Hajj, I was in his office; we were there to receive the governor of the CBN. We had briefing with him. So if the governor of the CBN from the executive arm will attend to Senate calling, I don’t think there will be any other civil servant or technocrat that willfully will not want to attend to our call. Those are not things that should be brought to the front burner. People should be able to help us do away with the scourge of the insurgency. How do we deal with this insurgency that has regurgitated itself that innocent lives are being killed in the name of the devil not religion? These are our problems, not these trivialities that if I am looking towards 2019, then every Nigerian must be involved. I am appealing to those heating up the polity stop henceforth. Some of them are dragging our name to the mud. If there is any quarrel, it is not known to us, we are not involved and we will not partake. We swore by the constitution, and we are going abide by the constitution.

What is the implication of all these in the Senate and the country?

In terms of what? There is a Senate leadership, we have a Senate President, a Deputy Senate President, DSP, Majority and Deputy Majority Leaders, Chief Whip and Deputy Whip. I don’t know this hullabaloo and I am sure based on Senate standing orders, by the time the Senate resumes from recess, maybe the Senate leadership would have constituted committees, because the powers to constitute these committees from our standing rules is vested on the Senate leadership. You have been seeing the Senate President working. You saw him in Saudi Arabia condemning the visa policy of Saudi Arabia whereby they are discriminating against Nigerians. They are making things hard for us. You saw him appeal to the CBN to liaise with the Custom Service to ensure that the N30 billion shortchanged from the import waivers are retrieved from those shortchanging the country. Things are working; it is only those few who are trying to destabilise the polity that are sending speculative things through the social media, through newspapers that they are controlling.

There are reports that the President refused to see Senate President, how far are these reports true?

That is very speculative. There has never been a situation where Senator Saraki applied to see the President and denied. You all saw them at the International Conference Centre, ICC, during the last National Working Committee, NWC, of the All Progressives Congress, APC. You saw him when he received Mr President, having banters with President Buhari and I have confirmed to you that the President has written letters addressed to him as Senate President. If he doesn’t recognise him, will he write letters to him?

You just talked about the insurgency and there have been complaints that Mr President is slow in tackling the insurgency. What is your take?

On the issues of this insurgency, the President himself has told you it is very multidimensional and that is why you saw him going to Niger, Chad and Cameroun. You can see he has visited the U.S. Part of what he discussed while in the US was the issue of the insurgency. You saw him in the U.K talking about insurgency and you have seen how development partners and developed countries are contributing to how to deal with this insurgency. We visited Rear Admiral Nyako. As a former Chief of Naval Staff, CNS; Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, DCDS, he has said that there is nowhere in the world where insurgency is defeated by war. You have to sit down and identify those behind the insurgence; negotiate with them and know how to disarm them. You are dealing with a ragtag army, not a conventional army. If you check on the social media, you would have seen how a man dressed as a woman went to a market in pursuance of the Boko Haram agenda. Providence was on the people’s side, he was arrested. When they searched him, they discovered he was a man. Look at what happened in Jos. As citizens, we have our part to play. If we don’t expose these insurgents, they are humans like us, they are our sons and daughters. we know them, we can trace them, if we don’t expose them, we are not helping the situation..

Are you hopeful that all issues in both chambers will be resolved in no long distance?

I have said it before, there is no crisis in the National Assembly. These are things being orchestrated by outsiders not from the National Assembly. All the issues of propaganda are not from the National Assembly. They are coming from outsiders that have interest or would have gotten their interest protected and their interest will not be served by Speaker Yakubu Dogara or Saraki’s Senate Presidency. Let me tell you, put it on record, former governor of Nassarawa State, Abdullahi Adamu, now a senator, was among those rooting for Ahmed Lawan. He has turned himself to the nationalists that the election is over, it is now the issue of Senate and anything that will bring disrepute to the Senate he will not be a part of it. You will see him going with Saraki. Former governor of Kebbi State Aliero, they were the core leaders of the Senators Unity Forum, SUF. After the elections, he said there are no more groups that the leadership has emerged. Former governor of Kano State, Kabiru Gaya and so many others in the SUF, have sheath their swords. I have told you with all sincerity, if Saraki is not behaving according to the constitution, I for one will deviate from him publicly, because when I rooted for him, I supported him publicly, everybody knew. I have told him that whenever his personal interest conflicts with those of my people, we will part ways. Let us not belabour the issue of National Assembly, especially the Senate.

With the recent development, how do you look at the role of the media?

For the records I didn’t lampoon the media. I said a section of the media was being used to heat up the polity. In developing countries like Nigeria, we are having problems with media because, the media is the creation of their sponsors. They are there to say what their owners want them to say. Few of them have balance. If you look at the problem Saraki is having with the media, 95 per cent is coming from one of the media house and each and every one of us knows the owner of the media. A section of the media is heating up the polity by dishing out propaganda. The media is supposed to be vanguard for development. They are supposed to initiate good governance. They are supposed to educate the people about their rights. They are to ensure that accountability, probity and transparency are entrenched in governance. That should be the focus, not where they will exploit our problems and sow seeds of disunity.

Recently, the police invited the Deputy Senate President over alleged forgery in the Senate, what is your reaction?

I don’t know that. I have read in the papers but I don’t think it is true. Senator Ike Ekweremadu has spoken on the issue. He said traditionally at the end of every National Assembly, the standing rules are adopted for the incoming Assembly except where the members decide to alter it. Look at the issue of ranking of senators, which was inserted at the end of the sixth National Assembly to prevent people like Saraki himself, Danjuma Goje and others that were aspiring for the Senate Presidency at that material time. All this sensational reporting is not helping us as a country. The President promised to deal with security, insurgency, corruption and others. Let us concentrate on those issues and not issues of Senate leadership, where the Constitution states that the senators will have the prerogative of electing one of them as the President or Deputy Senate President, and not in a situation that the standing rule states that the leaders of the Senate shall be from the ruling party.

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Mr Wakili do not worry you will decide what to do when your cups get filled. Baba is not stupid as your kind assume. We the populace are also wiser and more interested in what public officers do with our taxes.

At an appointed time NASS will be disinfected - the Saraki traits will be replaced with common sense and probity.