MY CANDID ADVICE: Senate President Replies Dele Momodu

My dear brother Dele, let me thank you most sincerely for your
article last weekend, “My Candid Letter to Saraki.” I take
everything you said in that article to heart and I must commend
you for your candidness indeed and the sincerity of your
intentions.
As you said in your article, you are someone I have known more
by reputation than by any personal relationship, until recently
when we struck up some personal acquaintance based on our
shared political interests, especially during the last presidential
election.

However, I understand why you had to sound so defensive for
knowing me at all and had to publicly map the boundaries of our
relationship. We have got to that point in our country when we no
longer believe that anyone could stand for anything based on
principles and convictions alone. Moreover, in the growing culture
of media crucifixion and presumed guilt; it is rare to find a voice
like yours that calls for fairness and justice.

I would have simply sent you a text message or call you up for
your candid advice to me, which I take seriously. But I feel the
need to make some clarifications on some of the issues you
raised. One of them was that in seeking to be Senate President, I
struck a deal with the PDP and made it possible for one of them
to be the Deputy Senate President. I know this is the dominant
narrative out there, but it is far from the truth.

I did not do any deal with the PDP. I did not have to because
even before the PDP Senators as a group took the decision to
support my candidature on the eve of the inauguration of the 8th
Senate, 22 PDP Senators had already written a letter supporting
me. What I did not envisage was a situation where some
members of my party would not be in the chambers that day,
especially when the clerk had already received a proclamation
from the President authorizing the inauguration of the Senate.
Pray, if a team refused to turn up for a scheduled match and
was consequently walked over, would it be fair to blame the
team that turned up and claimed victory? I believe those that
made it possible for PDP to claim the DSP position were those
who decided to hold a meeting with APC senators elsewhere at
the time they ought to be in the chambers. What the PDP
Senators did was to take advantage of their numerical strength at
the material time. They simply lined up behind Senator Ike
Ikweremadu while those of us from APC voted for Senator Ali
Ndume. It was a game of numbers, and we were hopelessly
outnumbered. If the PDP had nominated their own candidate for
the Senate Presidency position that day, they would have won. It
was as simple as that.

Secondly, I don’t know if you were aware that in the build up to
Senate inauguration, the National Working Committee of the APC
sent two signals. The first signal specified how leadership
positions in the National Assembly have been zoned. While we
were trying to give effect to this decision, the second signal
came, which contained names of people to which these zoned
position had been allocated. What was not acknowledged was
that the President of the Senate is not an executive president. He
is primarily one of 109 senators. Therefore, I cannot decide by
myself who gets what in the Senate. Therefore, when they said I
defied party directive in the choice of principal officers, they are
invariably ascribing to me the power that I did not have.

My dear brother, most people talk about the Senate Presidency
position, but this was not my only offence. I have also been
accused of helping to frustrate some people’s opportunity to
emerge as President Muhammadu Buhari’s running mate. But I
have no problem with anybody. My concern was that it would
not be politically smart of us to run with a Muslim-Muslim ticket.
I doubt if we would have won the election if we had done this,
especially after the PDP had successfully framed us a Muslim
party. I felt we were no longer in 1993. Perhaps, more than ever
before, Nigerians are more sensitive to issues of religious
balancing. This, my brother, was my original sin. What they say
to themselves, among other things, was that if he could conspire
against our ambition, then he must not realize his own ambition
as well. For me however, I have no regrets about this. I only
stood for what I believed was in the best interest of the party
and in the best interest of Nigeria.

Now to the substantive issue of my trial. As you rightly noted,
this trial is not about corruption. And I am happy that since my
trial started, people who have followed the proceedings have now
understood better what the whole thing is about. I have had
opportunity to declare my assets four times since 2003. Over
those years, the Code of Conduct Bureau had examined my
claims. There was no time that they raised any issues with me
on any item contained in my declarations over those twelve
years. This is why you should be surprised that while I am being
tried by the Code of Conduct Tribunal, the witness and the
evidence supplied against me were all from EFCC.
Like you, I have an abiding faith in the judiciary. May God forbid
the day that we would give up on our judicial system. However,
the onus is not on me to prove that I have confidence in the
judiciary; the burden is on my prosecutors to prove to the world
that justice is done in my case. If the process of fighting
corruption is itself corrupt, then whatever victory is recorded
would remain tainted and puerile!

Some people have wondered, why has Saraki been “jumping”
from one court to another instead of facing his trial? To those
people, I would say that I have only gone to those courts in
search of justice. Strange things have happened, and they are still
happening. For example, Section 3(d) of the Code of Conduct
Bureau and Tribunal Act states that the Bureau shall refer any
breach or non-compliance to the Tribunal. However, where the
person concerned makes a written admission of the breach, no
reference to the Tribunal shall be necessary. It was on this basis
that the case against Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was dismissed in
2011, by this same judge in this same Tribunal on the grounds
that he was not given an opportunity to deny or admit to any
breach before he was brought before the tribunal. This was the
ruling that I relied on in making my case. But what did the judge
say? That he had judged in error in 2011 and he had since
realized his error and departed from it. My question is whether a
Tribunal of first instance has the power to reverse itself. I should
expect that everyone would be worried if justice is applied
differently to different people. However, in spite of my fears, I
remain hopeful. Why? Because the judiciary does not end with
this Tribunal.

Do you know the genesis of my real problems with President
Goodluck Jonathan? I have had a touchy relationship with him,
but the turning point was in September 2011 when I moved a
motion on the floor of the Senate that exposed the N2.3 trillion
fuel subsidy racket. I remain proud that I was the Senator that
blew the lid on the most elaborate corruption scheme ever in this
country. But after that I became a marked man. My security was
withdrawn. I was invited and re-invited by the EFCC and the
Special Fraud Unit. I was even declared wanted at a point. I
believe I am still one of the most investigated former governors
in this country. I have no doubt that if the Jonathan government
was able to find anything against me, they would not have
allowed me to go unpunished.

Let me make this point clearly. I do not expect to be shielded
from prosecution because of my contribution to APC, if there
was genuine basis for such action to be taken against me. But I
have every reason to expect not to be persecuted by the party
that I contributed so much to build. The New PDP may not have
given APC victory in 2015, but it was an important factor in the
dynamics that produced that victory. And with all sense of
modesty, I was an important factor in the formation of New PDP;
in leading that group to the APC; in ensuring our group’s support
for the candidate during the primaries and in mobilizing
substantial resources for the election. For these, I have not
expected any special compensation. Rather, I only expect to be
treated like every loyal party member and accorded the right to
freely aspire!

Some people have complained that I have been taken Senators
with me to my trial. But I did not force them to follow me. The
Senators have freely accompanied me to the Tribunal not
because they are loyal to me as Abubakar Bukola Saraki, but
because they are committed to the principle that produced me
as the President of the Senate. The same principle that produced
Ike Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President and produced Ali
Ndume as Majority Leader. They see all of us in the Senate
leadership as manifestation of their jealously guarded right to
freely choose their own leaders. Because they know they made
us their leaders without any external interference; they are
confident that they retain the power to remove us whenever they
so wish. They also know what this trial is all about. They believe I
am being victimized because they have expressed their right to
choose their own leadership. This is why I am not in any way
perturbed by my absence in the chambers during this trial.
Because I was not imposed on the Senate, I feel confident that
the Senate will protect its own choice whether I am present or
not. It is never about me. It is about the independence of the
legislature. It has always been so since 1999. It is so today and
it would be so in 2019, it would be so in 2023, and as long as
we practice a democracy that operates on the principle of
separation of powers.

My dear brother, let me end by observing that I am not alone in
this trial. On trial with me in this process is the entire judicial
system. On trial with me are our entire anti-corruption institutions
and our avowed commitment to honestly fight corruption. On trial
with me is our party’s promise to depart from the ways of the
past, a promise that Nigerians voted for. And I dare say, on trial
with me is our media; and their ethical commitment to report
fairly and objectively. In the end, it is my earnest hope that
whatever we do will ultimately ennoble our country.