How alleged plot to unseat Saraki as Senate president failed

Reports have emerged on how an alleged plan by a group of APC senators to remove Bukola Saraki from his office as Senate president failed. Sources claimed part of the plan was to get Saraki detained by the police.

- Sources claim the Nigeria Police had planned to detain Bukola Saraki as part of its investigation into the Offa bank robbery incident

- A senator in anti-Saraki camp who asked not to be named, says that the plot against the Senate president failed because of too much hypocrisy and selfishness

- A report says Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara decided to remain in APC to bid for time

Reports have emerged on how an alleged plan by a group of All Progressives Congress (APC) senators to remove Bukola Saraki from his office as Senate president failed.

Premium Times, citing a security source, stated that faced with the looming defection of lawmakers from the APC, some loyalist in party allegedly hatched a plan to create vacancy in the presiding officer post by taking out the two presiding officers from the Senate on the same day.

Sources told the newspaper that in carrying out the plan, the police allegedly kept silent on its investigation of the Offa incident for over a month, but later mobilised to revisit the Offa robbery matter by inviting Saraki and allegedly planned to detain him pending the execution of the take-over plot at the Senate.

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The newspaper learnt that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was also supposed to arrest the deputy Senate president, Ike Ekweremadu, thereby leaving the Senate without a presiding officer.

In the absence of the two presiding officer, sources claimed the plotters led by the Senate majority leader, Ahmed Lawan, had planned to use the vacuum created to invoke the Senate rules to appoint Senate president pro-tempo, paving the way for the removal of the two principal officers.

A senator in the anti-Saraki camp who asked not to be named, told Premium Times on Tuesday, July 23, that part of the reason the plan failed was because of the inability of the plotters to select who would succeed Saraki in the event the plot succeeded.

“There is too much hypocrisy and selfishness. Those who planned it wanted to be the sole beneficiaries of the leadership change,” the senator said.

Sources claimed Senator Lawan, who was leading the plot, and Ali Ndume, a former Senate leader who was removed from his post and suspended, were tipped to replace the Senate president had the plan succeeded.

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“Some of us told them that it would be illogical and it amounted to insensitivity to take the Senate president slot to the North-east, the same zone as the Speaker of the House of Representatives,” another APC aware of the alleged plot explained.

“And since the speaker [Yakubu Dogara] is very strong at the House pf Representatives and there is nothing we could do about him, the best thing was to keep the Senate President position in the North-Central.”

Meanwhile, it has been learnt that the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives, Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara respectively, have decided to remain in the All Progressives Congress (APC) for a reason.

The duo refused to join their defecting colleagues on Tuesday, July 24, despite reportedly being among members of the ruling party who had recently had grievances.

Daily Trust reports that all the lawmakers from Kwara state and a few loyalists to Dogara from Bauchi moved into the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

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Source: Naija.ng