Facts have emerged showing why Senate President
Bukola Saraki led a delegation of Senators to meet
former President Olusegun Obasanjo at his hilltop
mansion, Abeokuta, Ogun state on Friday.
A source close to the meeting told PREMIUM TIMES
that the Senate President was in Abeokuta to beg Mr.
Obasanjo to reconcile him with President
Muhammadu Buhari and his party, the All
Progressives Congress, APC.
Mr. Saraki emerged as the president of the Senate
against the decision of APC leaders. He was also
elected when most Senators from the APC were at
the International Conference Centre waiting to hold a
meeting with Mr. Buhari to discuss the election of the
Senate president and Speaker of the House of
Representatives.
Our sources said Mr. Saraki lamented to Mr.
Obasanjo that although the party leaders have stated
that they have accepted his emergence, there was
“complete communication breakdown between him,
the president and the party”.
The national chairman of the APC, John Oyegun, had
abruptly cancelled a scheduled meeting with Mr.
Saraki last week without giving another appointment.
Likewise, we also gathered that Mr. Saraki had tried
severally to meet with Mr. Buhari after his
emergence, but was always denied audience.
Another source in the presidency informed us that
the President was angry with Mr. Saraki and the
management of the national assembly for going
ahead with their election despite adequate
knowledge of an invitation for a meeting with Mr.
Saraki and his colleagues.
“The president considered it as a mark of disrespect
for his office for Saraki to ignore an invitation to meet
with him and his colleagues,” our source said.
In his response to the Senate President’s
lamentation, Mr. Obasanjo reportedly promised to
do his best to “ensure communication between all
parties”.
However, the spokesperson for the president, Garba
Shehu, said the Senate president has never sought a
meeting meeting with Mr. Buhari since his election.
“I am not aware of any request for a meeting, the
president would have seen him, he represents a key
institution in our democracy,” he said.
Calls to Mr. Saraki and his aide, Bamikole Omishore,
were not answered.
Our source said the former president, in his usual
jocular self, also joked with the delegation, saying “
you children of nowadays only run to elders when
you have finished making the damage”.
Mr. Saraki and his entourage laughed.
A presidency official told PREMIUM TIMES President
Buhari was aware of the the senate president’s visit
to Mr. Obasanjo’s home.
The official said Messrs Buhari and Obasanjo are
constantly in touch and regularly have telephone
conversations.
The official said in one of their recent conversations,
Mr. Obasanjo informed Mr. Buhari that Mr. Saraki
was leading a delegation of Senators to his Abeokuta
home.
“I overheard President Buhari laughing and saying to
Mr. Obasanjo, “you have to see them, are they not all
your boys?”, our presidency source said.
Among Mr. Saraki’s delegation include former
governor of Gombe state, Danjuma Goje, Senator
Andy Uba, former Zamfara governor, Ahmed Sani,
and former Osun governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola.
Mr. Saraki and most members of his delegation are
largely Mr. Obasanjo’s “boys”, a term loosely used in
describing the former president’s staunch loyalists.