The former acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, made this assertion in an interview with some journalists in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital. He observed that no other Senate president has suffered “dry, blatant, political tyrannical and open persecution” as Bukola Saraki, since the return of democracy in 1999.
Daily Trust further quotes Baraje as disclosing that prior to the 2015 general elections, the APC had only three states in the North Central but “with a dint of hard work, Saraki delivered the zone 100 per cent.”
He added that the APC should be proud of producing the Senate President, stressing that “The PDP episode with Tambuwal (former House of Representatives Speaker) is still fresh in history. The PDP then didn’t throw the baby away with the bath water, knowing fully well that such move will be counterproductive. It was well managed and Tambuwal remained the Speaker under the then PDP.
“Our party may loath the ways of PDP, but out of every bad situation and experience, there are atoms of goodness, and every visionary leader will separate the chaff from the corn and take what is good out of it. So, it is not as if the Senate president has gone against his party.”
Speaking on the Kwara APC leader’s trial at the CCT, he said: “the case of Saraki has not followed due process and rule of law. It was the due process that was missing in the case of Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, and he was discharged but not acquitted. So, why is Saraki’s case different?
“So, as regards whether we are comfortable with where we are and whether we are joining other groups, every politician has aspirations about the development of his people, and if you cannot achieve it in one place, you go to another place. It doesn’t mean that I am a political prostitute. I am a principled person and will not stop until I get what I want, which in this case is good governance, equality, democratic dividends for my people. Impunity, lawlessness, lack of due process are not what formed the APC. With the intervention of some leaders like us, the party will continue to thrive, but for it not to go the way of the PDP, the president must play politics.”
While advising Buhari to be more involved with happenings in APC in order to checkmate the culture of impunity which made his group leave the PDP, Baraje said: “We must sound a note of warning to President Buhari to shine his eyes. There are people in the party, in the guise of reconciling people, who say they are working for the success of the party, while (they are) actually doing that for their own selfish interest.
“We would never romance impunity. President Buhari should be wary of them and play more politics now. He has gone into the house and has seen how bad it is; he has reorganised the house and what is left now is to consolidate on the reorganisation
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