Impeachment plot against Saraki will boomerang —Baraje

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, has said that an alleged plot to oust the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, will have dire consequences.

Speaking with Sunday Tribune in Ilorin, on Saturday, on the sideline of a prayer session to commemorate his 67th birthday, Alhaji Baraje asked those hatching the plot to tread with caution.

Baraje, a one-time acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said that the former governor of Kwara State had been able to get a grip of the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly like never before, insisting that he could not be intimidated owing to the fact that he “enjoys the confidence of his colleagues.”

Baraje said that the Senate President “is brilliant and full of hope and dream for Nigeria, advised that such lofty hope should not be destroyed on the altar of politics.”

“Many of us helped to build APC. I’m one of them, he (Saraki) was and still one of them. We are still building the party. I think the party has not made a statement about the so called threat to impeach him. We only learnt from the news that we read and from hearsays. And I think very sincerely, there must be ground before you impeach somebody like him, and they (Senators) have their own rules and regulations and we all have constitutions that guide impeachment.”

“If the Senate President is seen to have violated such rules, why not. But sincerely as of today and to the best of my knowledge, I don’t think any Senate President in the past, in the immediate-past or long past, has held the Senate like Bukola Saraki has been holding it. He has been seeing to be a team player, he has been seeing to be leader that carries the Senate along and he has been seeing to be somebody, who can endure, give and sacrifice for this nation.

“Remember that he got to that position like a war, as if he was fighting a war. Today, even those people, who opposed him, are the most fanatical people, who are his supporters today. So, what reason do you want to say you have to want to impeach such a person,” Baraje said.

“I’m aware there are lot of gimmicks, but the worst one that would boomerang against anybody who is planning anything, is to say they want to impeach Bukola Saraki. That Senate is solid as I have never seen. I believe it would keep bouncing. There are other ways that the gimmicks are going, let us all keep watching. We can only wish Nigeria well.

“But I only hope and pray that Nigerians will not be destroyers of their hope. Bukola Saraki is young, that is what I mean by hope; he has age in his support; he is brilliant; he knows Nigeria; he has dream for Nigeria. If today, we now stand to say we want to destroy such people, then that is why I said I hope and pray that Nigeria will not destroy its own future”, Baraje said.

On 2019 general election, the APC stalwart urged those with governorship ambition within the ruling party in Kwara State to realise tradition of the state political structure through which elective office holders are recruited.

Baraje admonished governorship aspirants to be wary of inordinate ambition and eschew any act that could heat up the polity.

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