Senate President Bukola Saraki is moving to make peace with his adversaries in the Senate by conceding a number of strategic or juicy committee chairmanships to them. Senator Saraki’s moves despite the overwhelming vote of confidence he got from the Senate last Tuesday Vanguard learnt was a personal effort to also satisfy officials of the All Progressives Congress, APC and President Muhammadu Buhari who were dissatisfied with the manner he emerged.
The efforts nonetheless, the Saraki caucus may have also conceded the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on the Review of the Constitution to Senator Ike Ekweremadu, a position that has traditionally gone to the holder of the office of Deputy Senate President.
Influential senators in the Saraki camp including Senators Dino Melaye, Danjuma Goje and Sani Yerima, Vanguard have also been pencilled down for strategic committee positions, a principal officer confided yesterday. They are among ten senators in the Saraki camp that have been enlisted for prominent committee positions.
Saraki’s trouble shooting efforts Vanguard learnt were unveiled weekend at a meeting of his associates at his Maitama residence. The plea of the Senate President was, however, not totally accepted by his loyalists many of whom expressed reservation with rewarding supporters of Senator Ahmad Lawan after the latter and his group petitioned the police over issues concerning the 2015 Standing Rules of the Senate.
The measure, according to the Senate President, would heal the wound which Lawan and his supporters are still reportedly carrying, following their inability to realize their ambition of clinching the Senate presidency position.
“I can confirm that a meeting to that effect was held last week by the Senate President. This was at the instance of supporters of the Senate President, who were insisting that for allowing us to go through all that happened here in the Senate, Lawan’s loyalists must be treated as renegades. But to demonstrate his magnanimity, the Senate President asked us all to bury everything that happened in the past, insisting that there was no victor in the contest”, the source said.
The source added: “Some of the senators particularly insisted that Senators Kabiru Marafa and Suleiman Hunkuyi, who were not only the well-known critics of emergence of the Senate President but went as far as sending petition to the police alleging forgery of the rule used in the election be only made as members of committees but the Senate President said no. He told them that doing so will not be fair in the spirit of ongoing efforts to bring every senator together and forge ahead a united Senate.”
