The President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki, who announced his defection from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday cited provocation, ridicule and persecution as reasons for his decision.
Saraki, who made this known in a statement on Tuesday, said he decided to defect to a party that would give him and his political supporters, sense of belonging.
He said, “this is not a decision that I have made lightly.
“If anything at all, I have tarried for so long and did all that was humanly possible, even in the face of great provocation, ridicule and flagrant persecution, to give opportunity for peace, reconciliation and harmonious existence.
“Perhaps, more significantly, I am mindful of the fact that I carry on my shoulder a great responsibility for thousands of my supporters, political associates and friends, who have trusted in my leadership and have attached their political fortunes to mine.
“However, it is after an extensive consultation with all the important stakeholders that we have come to this difficult but inevitable decision to pitch our political tent elsewhere.
“Where we could enjoy greater sense of belonging and where the interests of the greatest number of our Nigerians would be best served.
“While I take full responsibility for this decision, I will like to emphasise that it is a decision that has been inescapably imposed on me by certain elements and forces within the APC.
“Forces who have ensured that the minimum conditions for peace, cooperation, inclusion and a general sense of belonging did not exist.”
The president of the senate said those forces did everything to ensure that basic rules of party administration, which should promote harmonious relations among various elements within the party were disregarded.
He added that all governance principles required for a healthy functioning of the party and government were deliberately violated or undermined.
He further said that all entreaties for justice, equity and fairness as basic precondition for peace and unity, within the party, country at large, were ignored, or “employed as additional pretext for further exclusion.”
Saraki lamented that it was evident that his people and associates had in the past three years suffered alienation and were treated as outsiders.
He pointed out that the development made many to become disenchanted, adding that opportunities to seek redress and correct the anomalies were “deliberately blocked as a government-within-a-government had formed an impregnable wall and left in the cold, everyone else who was not recognized as “one of us”.
“This is why my people, like all self-respecting people would do, decided to seek accommodation elsewhere.
“I have had the privilege to lead the Nigerian legislature in the past three years as the President of the Senate and the Chairman of the National Assembly.
“The framers of our constitution envisage a degree of benign tension among the three arms of government if the principle of checks and balances must continue to serve as the building block of our democracy.
” In my role as the head of the legislature, and a leader of the party, I have ensured that this necessary tension did not escalate at any time in such a way that it could encumber Executive function or correspondingly, undermine the independence of the legislature.
“Over the years, I have made great efforts in the overall interest of the country, and in spite of my personal predicament, to manage situations that would otherwise have resulted in unsavoury consequences for the government and the administration.
“My colleagues in the Senate will bear testimony to this,” he said.
He said, “what we have seen is a situation whereby every dissent from the legislature was framed as an affront on the executive or as part of an agenda to undermine the government itself.
“The populist notion of anti-corruption became a ready weapon for silencing any form of dissent and for framing even principled objection as ‘corruption fighting back’.
“Persistent onslaught against the legislature and open incitement of the people against their own representatives became a default argument in defence of any short-coming of the government in a manner that betrays all too easily, a certain contempt for the Constitution itself or even the democracy that it is meant to serve.
“Unfortunately, the self-serving gulf that has been created between the leadership of the two critical arms of government based on distrust and mutual suspicion has made any form of constructive engagement impossible.
“Therefore, anything short of a slavish surrender in a way that reduces the legislature to a mere rubber stamp would not have been sufficient in procuring the kind of rapprochement that was desired in the interest of all.
“But I have no doubt in my mind, that to surrender this way is to be complicit in the subversion of the institution that remains the very bastion of our democracy.
“I am a democrat and I believe that anyone who lays even the most basic claim to being a democrat will not accept peace on those terms; which seeks to compromise the very basis of our existence as the parliament of the people.”
Saraki said he was left with no choice but to leave as efforts to attempt some of the most critical issues at stake failed.
He stressed that the attempt failed because “the discord has been allowed to fester unaddressed for too long, with dire consequences for the ultimate objective of delivering the common good and achieving peace and unity in our country.
“Any hope of reconciliation at this point was, therefore, very slim indeed. Most of the horses had bolted from the stable.
“The emergence of a new national party executives a few weeks ago held out some hopes, however slender.
“The new party chairman swung into action and did his best alongside some of the governors of APC and His Excellency, the Vice President.
“I thank them for all their great efforts to save the day and achieve reconciliation.
“Even though I thought these efforts were coming late in the day, but seeing the genuine commitment of these gentlemen, I began to think that perhaps it was still possible to reconsider the situation.
“However, as I have realised all along, there are some others in the party leadership hierarchy, who did not think dialogue was the way forward and therefore chose to play the fifth columnists.”
Saraki noted that those individuals ensured they scuttled the great efforts and good intentions of the aforementioned leaders of the party.
He said “had the divisive forces not thrown cogs in the wheel at the last minutes, and in a manner that made it impossible to sustain any trust in the process, the story today would have been different.
“For me, I leave all that behind me. Today, I start as I return to the party where I began my political journey, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
“When we left the PDP to join the then nascent coalition of All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2014, we left in a quest for justice, equity and inclusion.
” The fundamental principles on which the PDP was originally built but which it had deviated from.
“We were attracted to the APC by its promise of change. We fought hard along with others and defeated the PDP.”
Saraki said it was evident that the PDP had learnt more from its defeat than the APC had learnt from its victory.
According to him, the PDP has learnt its lessons the hard way and has realised that no member of the party should be taken for granted.
He further pointed out that the party had realised that inclusion, justice and equity were basic precondition for peace and that Nigerians could not be taken for granted.
“I am excited by the new efforts, which seeks to build the reborn PDP on the core principles of promoting democratic values; internal democracy; accountability; inclusion and national competitiveness; genuine commitment to restructuring and devolution of powers.
” I am also excited in the abiding belief in zoning of political and elective offices as an inevitable strategy for managing our rich diversity as a people of one great indivisible nation called Nigeria.
“What we have all agreed is that a deep commitment to these ideals were not only a demonstration of our patriotism but also a matter of enlightened self-interest.
“This is believing that our very survival as political elites of this country will depend on our ability to earn the trust of our people and in making them believe that, more than anything else, we are committed to serving the people.
“What the experience of the last three years have taught us is that the most important task that we face as a country is how to reunite our people.
“Never before had so many people in so many parts of our country felt so alienated from their Nigerianness.
“Therefore, we understand that the greatest task before us is to reunite the county and give everyone a sense of belonging regardless of region or religion,” he said.
He called on Nigerians not to lose confidence in the fact that they will be treated with justice and equity in any part of the country regardless of the language they speak or how they worshipped God.
“This is the great task that trumps all. Unless we are able to achieve this, all other claim to progress no matter how defined, would remain unsustainable.
“This is the task that I am committing myself to and I believe that it is in this PDP, that I will have the opportunity to play my part.
“It is my hope that the APC will respect the choice that I have made as my democratic right, and understand that even though we will now occupy a different political space, we do not necessarily become enemies unto one another,” he said.
