Senate presidency: Don makes case for Saraki

As jostle for the position of Senate president gets hotter, a Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Hassan Salihu, has advocated for the candidacy of Senator Bukola Saraki representing Kwara Central in the National Assembly.

Salihu, a former Dean, Faculty of Business and Social Science, University of Ilorin, described Saraki as a political giant who has established his firm control of Kwara politics going by the outcome of the last elections.

In a statement titled, ‘A Vote for Senator Bukola Saraki as Senate President’, the scholar noted that Saraki took a political risk by dumping the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the All Progressives Congress (APC).

However, he added that Saraki, a two-term former governor of the state, did his calculations well before taking the risk.

He said, “He is a political giant in Kwara state where he has, in two elections and in spite of stiff opposition, led his political parties to victory in 2011 and 2015 and thus establishing himself as a strong political force in the state.

“I must confess that when he joined other PDP stalwarts to walk out of the PDP Convention in 2013 and later defected to APC, I was one of those who had expressed some reservations on how he could emerge from the crisis without losing some political mileage.

“But as events have shown, he did his calculations well before taking the political risk. The end of the two rounds of elections this year has firmly established his total control over the politics of Kwara state as all the posts/seats contested for were won by the candidates of APC. What this means is that he has a solid home base and his position as a leader of APC cannot be contested. This naturally should qualify him for the post of Senate President”.

The don added that Saraki played great roles in stabilizing the administration of former President Umar Yar’Adua and also helped in blowing the lid open on the corruption in the oil sector.

He stressed that Saraki has the potential to succeed David Mark, saying it was the potentials people saw in Mark that paved way for his emergence in 2007.