Saraki’s Exit From APC Liberation For Kwara – Lai Mohammed

The Federal Government has described as a blatant lie the statement credited to Bukola Saraki, Senate President, that one of the reasons he dumped the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was that his home state, Kwara, was marginalised in the choice of appointees for juicy positions.

The administration also accused Saraki of frustrating the pace of government projects through deliberate delay of the annual budgets in the National Assembly.

Speaking in an interview at the weekend, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture, also said reports of a siege to the home of Saraki was lie.

“The Federal Government appointed over 200 persons into juicy offices without allotting any slot to me or (Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu) Dogara.

“Everything went to Katsina, Katsina, Lagos, Lagos. If not for the love I have for Nigeria, we would have scattered everything.

“They don’t want us in their party. They don’t like us in Kwara. What I am after is for my people to enjoy dividend of democracy,” Saraki had said in his statement.

Responding, the minister said: “We have a National Assembly in which we had a clear majority in both houses but which treated the executive with contempt and who actually slowed down the work of government.

“In 2016, 2017 and 2018, our budgets were delayed. We can understand 2015 budget because we came in, in the middle of the year. But 2016, 2017, the earliest we got our budgets was June.

“Key appointments, nominations, and confirmations for key organisations that could move the government forward like the CBN, like the NDIC, were delayed. Really, it couldn’t have been worse if the PDP had a majority in the National Assembly.

“The fundamental thing is that for us, it would have been better that they left a long time earlier because they have strangulated this government for too long. When you are now being betrayed by your own party is more painful because we can’t fight back as much as we want to fight back.

“I just want to establish that the foundation of what you are seeing today was laid as far back as the day he became Senate President.”

The minister, while responding to the allegation of siege to the home of the Senate President, described the report as fake news, saying Nigerians should disregard the pictures and videos they see in circulation.

“It was fake news, it didn’t happen. I called the IGP and the Police PRO went on television to say that it was not true. In this age of fake news, you could manipulate pictures in a manner that something that happened somewhere could be transported here.”

Speaking on the challenges of agriculture and other consequences of the drying up of the Lake Chad and the resulting problems of insecurity, he said the administration was already in talks with other countries in the region to reflate the lake.

The minister said: “Nigeria had 45 million people when we became independent in 1960. Today we are 190 million people.

“So, it is about a struggle for resources. Secondly, Lake Chad was 25,000sqm surface area in 1963. The same Lake Chad has shrunk today to 2,500sqm yet Lake Chad was supporting 35 million lives from Nigeria, Central African Republic, Benin, Chad, Niger and Cameroun.

“Those 35 million people were using that water to fish, farm and do irrigation. There used to be about 3000 different types of fish in Lake Chad, it has now shrunk to about 500.

“So it is about resources that are dwindling combined with population explosion and, of course, criminality.

“The good thing is that we are looking at this problem in a more holistic manner than people want to know and that is why Nigeria has hosted twice the Conference of Lake Chad Basin Countries.

“The only solution is to reflate the Lake and we are talking to all the countries. It is very expensive but it is the only way out. Until more water is brought back into the Lake Chad, we will continue to have this problem.

“When you look at the farmer-herders’ crisis, it is not restricted to Nigeria, it is in Ghana, it is in Southern Sudan, it is in Kenya. The good thing is that while we are looking at the long-term solution, we are also looking at the short-term solution, that is why we set up this quick response wing of the Air Force to tackle herdsmen-farmers’ clashes in Zamfara, in Taraba, in Benue state.

“The Military has established two new Battalions in both Zamfara and Birnin Gwari in Kaduna. Just recently 1000-combined force of security agencies is tackling the matter in Zamfara and every day we are recording successes.”

He said the exit of Saraki from the APC was for the people of Kwara State like independence.

“As far as the people of Kwara State are concerned, it was as if, finally, the state was being liberated. The excitement today in Kwara State is akin to how Nigeria felt on the eve of Independence.

“The moment he joined the APC, the former ACN, former ANPP, former CPC members who were in APC, many of them left APC because they could not be in the same camp with him.

“So, what we are witnessing today in Kwara State is like a liberation and, from the support I have received so far, including the entire leadership of the party led by the Chairman, Akogun Oyedepo Iyiola who met with me and the National Chairman with 17 other leaders, including Professor Oba Abdulraheem, Senator S.S. Ajibola, all the three Senatorial district chairmen of the PDP in the state gives me confidence that Saraki’s days in dominating Kwara politics are limited.

“I also met with the 16 PDP candidates in the last local government elections in my hometown in Oro on Monday and those 16 candidates actually claimed they won the local government elections but something is clear, they changed the status quo.”

On Saraki’s allegation on appointments, he said: “I think it is a blatant lie that Kwara State was not considered in appointments.

“There are 26 appointees to boards, parastatals, either as members or DG, to Kwara State and of these 26, I recommended only two. The other 24 were done by Dr. Bukola Saraki.”

“In terms of development, the arterial road of Ilorin, Jebba, Mokwa, Birnin Gwari road is 80 percent completed. It is one of the major roads that link the state.

“On the other hand, it is this same government that awarded the contract for the Lokoja-Omu Aran-Ilorin road. In terms of housing, we are building many two bedroom houses in Ilorin.

“Again, in terms of appointment, one of the chairmen of parastatals is the out-gone chairman of APC, Ishola Balogun Fulani. So it is a blatant lie.”