Senate President, Bukola Saraki on Saturday, June 27, 2015 made shocking revelation of how he escaped being abducted on Tuesday, June 9, 2015 when the 8th Senate was inaugurated and he became Senate President.
Speaking at his maiden press conference as Senate President, Saraki revealed that as at 4 am, he got information that the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in concert with APC lawmakers opposed to his candidacy had concluded plans for him not to get to the Assembly complex.
His words: “First of all, as regards the meeting (at ICC), on the morning of the inauguration, I didn’t finish meeting until 4.00am of that day and I had got information that efforts would likely be made to make sure that I didn’t get access into the chambers.
“So, as early as 4:00am and 5:00am, I had made contingency plans that I must get into the National Assembly because the plan before was that Senators-elect should go to the Transcorp Hilton Hotel around 8:00clock and 9:00am to proceed to the National Assembly.
“But I was advised that it would not be safe or secure for me to do that because some people would make sure if I didn’t get into the chambers, it would not be possible for me to be nominated, for the nomination to be seconded and for me and to accept the nomination.
“I can tell you today, that I was in the National Assembly Complex as early as 6.00am in the morning and I stayed in a car in the Car Park, from 6.00 in the morning till quarter to 10.00am. This is the truth. I stayed there and I was there with no communication whatsoever.
“So, anybody who said they spoke to me to go the ICC was not true because I didn’t even know what was going on. All I was monitoring was how people were arriving the Complex.
”It was at quarter to 10:00 I got information that the Clerk to the National Assembly had entered the chamber.
“So, I got out of the small car I was inside, stretched myself and put on my Babariga because I didn’t have it on before then.
”I walked from the Car Park into the chambers…That was why some of you would have seen that I looked very tired on that morning.
“Even when I was in the chambers, I didn’t know what had transpired earlier on. The only thing I observed was that it appeared that some of our Senators were not in the chamber but the fact that my colleagues arrived in batches; I had the opinion that they were on the way and by 10:00am, the programme started.
“Before I knew it, my election had come and gone. Even my people were worried; it was only when I got into the chambers that they were relieved.”
