2019: Saraki Can’t Pass Integrity, Anti-corruption Tests

By Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The All Ptogressives Congress (APC) has accused Senate President Bukola Saraki of employing blackmail and treachery to achieve his political ambition of becoming Nigeria’s president.

While reacting to reports of Saraki’s possible bid for the presidency of the country, the ruling party said the former APC chieftain cannot pass integrity and anti-corruption tests.
Citing a recent interview Bloomberg where the senate president declared his intention to contest the 2019 Presidency on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), APC in a statement issued by its Acting National Publicity Secretary, Yekini Nabene, said Saraki’s declaration brings to the fore its earlier call on anti-graft agencies to check the use of stolen public funds to finance elections in the country.
“We reiterate our position that the Nigerian electorate must have the opportunity to choose from candidates that can pass the integrity and anti-corruption test.

“Nigerians should be wary of a man whose personal ambition will always supersede the interest of the majority and national interest as currently displayed in the National Assembly,” it said.
The ruling party further alleged that Saraki’s refusal to reconvene the National Assembly is delaying the passage of the 2019 election budget of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
It said the action was deliberately being taken to sabotage INEC’s ability to conduct free, fair, transparent and credible elections in 2019.

The statement said: “While Saraki refuses to step down as Senate President as rightly and severally demanded by the APC-dominated Senate, he is bent on foisting a PDP-minority rule (Senate President and Deputy Senate President) in the Upper Legislative House.
“The only politics that Saraki plays is self, himself only and only himself.

The interest and welfare of the people of Nigeria do not mean anything to him. Now it is the Presidency Saraki wants. And we ask with what antecedents is he doing this? Conspiracy, blackmail, treachery and vaulting ambition which overleaps itself and falls on the other, as rightly captured by William Shakespeare. Saraki will rather rule in hell than serve in paradise,” it said.