Last night, the former President of the Senate, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, met with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Caucuses of the Senate and the House of Representatives and got a motion endorsing his presidential candidacy passed by the House of Representatives.
Both meetings with senators and representatives, held at the homes of the Minority Leaders of both chambers, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe and Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, and had the lawmakers interact with the former Chairman of the National Assembly.
At the interactive meeting with the members of the House of Representatives, which held first, as Saraki was about to leave, a member of the PDP Caucus moved a Motion for the Caucus to adopt Saraki as their candidate.
The Motion was then seconded by another member and put to the question by the House Minority Leader, Hon. Elumelu, to which the caucus members unanimously responded with an overwhelming “Yay!”
While addressing the Senators, Saraki said:
“Here, I am amongst family, because we have all been in the trenches together. We have all fought to defend the unity of the legislature and preserve the Constitution of the nation.
“This is why, as I seek your support, I ask that you see this through the lens of capacity, competence, and a commitment to get the difficult tasks accomplished.
“Nigeria needs a leader who can get things done. A leader that can represent the country anywhere and make all Nigerians proud,” Saraki said.
One of the respondents, former Governor of Benue State and the Senator representing Benue North East in the 9th National Assembly, Gabriel Suswam, stated that Saraki was the leader that Nigeria needs at this difficult time.
“I know this young man. We were both Governors at the same time. Our nation has gone through a lot over the last eight years. We cannot be holding on to regional or tribal politics otherwise, all of us will be consumed.
“If you find a gentleman like Saraki anywhere, who has shown capacity and integrity, we should not be talking about politics of tribe — we should be emphasizing, who can take us out of the woods, because, right now, we are in a jungle.
“Most of us here have worked directly with Saraki. I worked with him as a Governor. Many of you worked with him when he was the Senate President. We can all admit that from the capacity that he has shown in handling difficult national problems, this is the person Nigeria needs at this time,” Senator Suswam said.
Other Senators who described Saraki in glowingly terms include Senator Chukwuka Utazi, Sen. Matthew Urhoghide, Sen. Abba Moro, Sen. Kola Balogun and Sen. Jeff Orkar, among others.
On Monday, a group of Young Professionals and business people had purchased the nomination and expression of interest from for Saraki who had earlier met with the PDP State Chairmen; the State Women Leaders; the Zonal Ex-Officios; Publicity Secretaries amongst other critical delegates in the party.
The Saraki Advocacy Group headed by Prof. Iyorwuese Hagher has also been touring all the states to brief critical stakeholders and party chieftains on Saraki’s ambition. The group will today complete the on-going tour of North-East and South-west.
