I am not plotting Mark’s impeachment —Saraki

CHAIRMAN, Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, Dr Bukola Saraki, has said he is not involved in any plan to impeach the Senate President, David Mark. Saraki, who had been speculated in a section of the media as a possible beneficiary of the impeachment plan, in a statement by his media aide, Bamikole Omisore, said he would not support the move. The former Kwara State governor said the aggrieved senators who allegedly planned to remove Mark, because they failed to get re-elected, had turned deaf ears to flagrant anti-democratic acts by the Senate leadership, because they thought they would win return tickets. He counselled every senator who lost the return ticket to accept his or her fate, instead of sponsoring impeachment moves against Mark. “The attention of the office of Senator Bukola Saraki has been drawn to a publication made in some national dailies, wherein it was stated that about 49 senators who lost out in their return bid to the Senate had planned to remove Senator Mark and replace him with either Senators Saraki or (George) Akume. “We will like to state categorically and unequivocally that Senator Saraki, the senator representing Kwara Central senatorial district of Kwara State, has no knowledge of these developments, and is not a part of any plan by any individual, or group of senators, or political caucus, that has to do with the said publication in the aforementioned dailies; and he will not be a party to such for any reason whatsoever. “Sequel to this, it is our candid opinion and belief that any senator that has lost his bid to return to the Senate should lay on his bed as he or she has found it, and not resort to the sponsorship of canard and divisive ideas and information. Hence, individual senators must bear their own respective crosses “It is common knowledge that when Senator Saraki was the chairman of Governors’ Forum, he fought with his colleagues to ensure that at least each state of the federation returned one senator - which was why there was a reasonable turnover in the Senate in the 2011 election. “Senator Saraki is of the view that if the senators who lost out in their return bid truly wanted to take up any matter with the leadership of the Senate, they would have done so a long time ago when some matters of public importance and national interest were handled in a manner short of democratic principles by the Senate leadership. “However, in those times, most of them turned a blind eye to those developments because of their personal ambitions.