With the Nigerian Senate resuming plenary on Tuesday, September 29, 2015 with indications stating that the session might be a stormy session due to the on going trial of Senate President, Bukola Saraki at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).
According to investigations by Punch, anti-Saraki Senators under the platform of the Senate Unity Forum (SUF) will on Tuesday, request the resignation of the Senate President.
One SUF member who spoke to Punch on Sunday, September 27, 2015 said: “Posterity will judge us if we continue to condone corruption in the legislature instead of distancing ourselves from it”
“It is our intention to reach out to more senators who had yet to see things from the same perspective like us and we will play our role and leave the rest for Nigerians to judge.
“The Senate president may rule us out of order while his supporters may also make noise and shout us out but we will say our own and allow history to be the judge.
“Nigerians know what is going on and majority of our people now have access to the mass media more than ever before, so they will also know the role that each senator plays in the whole saga.
“We are not assuring Nigerians that our efforts alone would get Saraki out of office but we will do the needful as responsible lawmakers and would encourage Nigerians to take it up from where we stop.”
On the opposing side is the are the Senators of Like Minds, a group of APC Senators who are pro-Saraki.
One of such Senators from the North central part of the country said they were aware of the plots by the SUF to “to blackmail the Senate president” affirming that Saraki has enough loyal senators “to kill any politically-motivated motion sponsored by any godfathers outside the Senate.”
He said: “We have a tradition in the Senate; anybody is free to air his or her view on any issue while the Senate president will in his wisdom rule in favour of the strongest argument.
“We equally wish to warn our colleagues on the opposite side to be careful with the way they are going about the whole issue because any Senator who connives with an external body to run down his or her colleague, would in the shortest possible time bite his fingers in anguish”
A PDP Senator from the South-East geopolitical zone clarified that any motion targeted at calling for the impeachment of Saraki or asking him to step aside would not sail through because the Senate would not discuss on any matter before the court.
The Senator said, “Any anti-Saraki motion on the floor on Tuesday based on his trial at the CCT will fail because all of us know that we can’t discuss any issue before the court.
“The Senate president will definitely not rule on any case before the court so nobody should bother to bring such an issue before him”
Another PDP senator revealed that the SUF have been reaching out to PDP lawmakers in a bid to get support for impeachment moves against Saraki.
The Senator who is from the South-South said, “I have been called by a Senator from the South-West geopolitical zone who is my friend but I told him that some leaders of the APC were using Saraki’s trial to get at other senators, which would be disastrous”
