kay, the 83 lunatics and other pro-Bukola Saraki elements take a deep breath for you'll get annoyed in the process of reading this article. If you don't get upset at me then you'll get angry at Saraki.





Saraki is a man without qualities. He has demonstrated in all his dealings as a business man and as a politician that he lacks follower's basic needs: trust, compassion, stability, and hope. Trust is primarily built through relationships. It is important because it's the fundamental currency that a leader has with his people or followers. Trust speaks to character and behavior. It's hard to trust a volatile leader in times of change.







Bayo Oluwasanmi


If there was ever a time when stability was important to our nation, it's right now. Nigerians need to know where the nation is headed. They need to believe that the change we voted for March 28 is not aborted. A leader provides stability in the moment while giving followers hope and inspiration for the future. Nigerians need to see how things will get better and what the future might look like.

Compassion is important to followers. A leader must show he cares. Saraki doesn't care for his people or for this nation. He's not compassionate. He cares for himself. It's all about him. Saraki with all his legal problems, moral failures, and ethical lapses cannot build the foundation for stability and it's impossible to create hope without stability.

Can anyone name a single thing other than looting and embezzling that Saraki has done for his people and for our nation? How has Saraki as a governor changed the lives of Kwara people? You bet, he left them impoverished than he met them. This is not allegation or a fanciful imagination, it's a testable fact.

Now the drama is unfolding. President Buhari's ministerial nominees are going for senate confirmation hearing before the Saraki Senate. The senate has the power, the right and indeed the duty to reject a nominee offered by the president. The power of the senate to confirm ministers nominated by the president is an important element in a government based on separation of powers.

The senate has a duty to pass on a nominee's character, ability, and general competence and to confirm only those nominees found to be qualified to assume the positions for which they are nominated. Shouldn't such important legislative oversight be led by a senate president who is not a criminal? Who is not standing trial on fraud and forgery? Whose character and competence are not in doubt? Who is law-abiding, respected, and held in high esteem?

Does Saraki know where is taking us? Do we want to go where he's going? Can a forger like Saraki fight the war on corruption with us? Do we share his political philosophy of corrupt politics? Is Saraki morally qualified to screen nominees for character, ability, and general competence when he’s on the minus side of these qualities? Can we say Saraki has character and integrity? Are you proud of Saraki as your senate president?

What's the record of Saraki as governor of Kwara State and senator? Character is more than talk. But action is the real indicator of character. Can we separate Saraki's character from his actions? How has Saraki dealt with circumstances of life? Is Saraki not a profiteer of miseries of poor Nigerians? Is Saraki not more of an exploiter and opportunist than anything else? What does Saraki's character reveal to you on how he forged the Senate Standing Orders to become the senate president? Do you want a criminal to screen your ministers? How can a criminal, a forger, a con master screen nominees? Is there anywhere in our constitution that says the “Senate President who presides over the screening of ministerial nominees must be a criminal”?

What's needed in our country today is leadership. We face diverse problems in this country. But we cannot solve the problems if people like Saraki fail to accept responsibilities of leadership and leading by example. As a nation we need to dedicate ourselves to a higher standard of leadership. We must summon our better angels to reject Saraki from presiding over the confirmation hearings. We deserve a senate president that represents us and who is well qualified to evaluate the ministers we're going to employ. Let's dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago “to tame the savageness of man.”

The only one kind of politics that performs well in Nigeria is corrupt politics. Our legislators the senators in particular, are corrupt and unresponsive. Unconstrained power in a democracy leads to inevitable corruption. The assemblage of greedy, corrupt, and inept senators headed by the worst culprit of them all – Saraki – to lead the inquisition so to say, of ministerial nominees, leads to tyrannical abuse of power. It's where the law ends and tyranny begins.
The responsibility to uphold law as contained in the constitution by both leaders and citizens is essential in a democracy for the preservation of societal order. The role of law in a democracy protects the citizenry against the tyranny of unconstrained power such as the one Saraki is trying to exercise by being the chair of the senate confirmation hearings.

“All the world's a stage, and all men and women merely players,” wrote Shakespeare. “They all have their exits and entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.” Shakespeare was right. We have many roles to play in life as from time to time we relate to various people and confront different circumstances. When one is in a public position it's very important that we let the people write the script, choose the cast, and direct the action. If we disregard the people and try to produce the drama ourselves, the story will have a tragic ending.

It is the law and adherence to the law by ALL that allow for true liberty or freedom. In other words, the king, the president, the speaker, the governor, the senate president, or whoever, like all other ordinary Nigerians are bound to it. The moral evil in our politics must attract swift and severe rebuke and rejection.

The screening of nominees by Saraki presents a theater of the absurd characterized by an open abandonment of rationale, ethics, and morals. Saraki has not passed the basic test of character and competence, why should he evaluate the nominees on the same basis?

By Bayo Oluwasanmi
byolu@aol.com"byolu@aol.com