@NGRSenate Leadership: I Breached No Rule in My Election, SP @BukolaSaraki Tells Court
The Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, on tuesday told Federal High Court in Abuja that he did not violate or breach any rule in the election that produced him and Senator Ike Ekweremadu as the Senate President and deputy respectively in June this year.
Saraki said contrary to the claims against him by some aggrieved senators, he was returned unopposed in the election by majority of the senators present on the election day in the upper chamber following his due nomination and endorsement for the office.
In his preliminary objection to a legal action instituted against him and Ekweremadu, the Senate President said the election being challenged by five senators was free, fair and transparent by all standards and also conformed with the best practice of the world.
Saraki who argued in court through his counsel, Mr. Kayode Eleja (SAN), asked Justice Adeniyi Ademola to dismiss the court action against him and five others for being abuse of court process, frivolous and unwarranted.
He said the five senators who instituted the action did not disclose what they lost by his election because none of them aspired or contested the senate presidency with him or any other officers and as such have no locus standi to come to court.
The five senators, Abu Ibrahim, Kabir Garba Marafa, Robert Ajayi Boroffice, Bareehu Olugbenga Ashafa and Suleiman Othman Hunkuyu, had sued the senate president and his deputy claiming that the senate standing rule used in their election was amended without due process.
In their suit filed by their counsel, Mamman Mike Osuman (SAN), they asked the court to set aside the election for being a nullity having allegedly violated the 2011 standing rule inherited in 2015.
But Saraki told the court that the process of the election in the senate was a domestic affair of the senators because no part of the 1999 Constitution or any other law was violated to warrant any litigation and that the court has no business to inquire into the internal affairs of the senate.
“There are 109 senators in the senate and only five are challenging the election of the officers. The point is that, the interest of the five senators, if any at all, cannot over-ride or be larger than the interest of 104 other senators”