5th August, 2015
Eromosele Ebhomele
Former member of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mufutau Egberongbe, has said Nigeria’s Senate President, Bukola Saraki, can still make the country proud by resigning honourably following proofs that the Senate rules under which he emerged as Senate President was forged.
There had been calls by some Nigerians and members of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, for Saraki’s resignation following the discovery by the police.
The Senate rules, it turned out, helped the Saraki and the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, to emerge in the Senate as leaders of for the eighth National Assembly.
Since their emergence in June, there had been bad blood within the APC and the Senate.
Speaking about the situation, Egberongbe wondered why politicians could throw away morality in their desperation to hold on to power.
“In whose interest was the Senate rules forged? Is it in the interest of the masses or some individual? Definitely, it is not in the interest of the masses.
“As it were, moral persuasion forms part of the characteristics of a leader, but this is suffering in the present circumstance.
“Therefore, the man should just honourably resign and apologise to Nigerians. Even if he feigns ignorance of the fact that the rules was forged, he should still resign on moral ground and save history and serve as a model for upcoming youths,” Egberongbe, one of the most respected lawmakers in the seventh Lagos Assembly said.
He lamented that Saraki was creating a bad precedent for other members of the party with the way he emerged as the Senate President.
He therefore urged the APC to use all disciplinary measures to ensure that Saraki does not become a canker worm that would infect other members of the party in terms of party discipline.
“Most of the issues bedevilling this country bothers on morals-dishonesty, stealing of government money and forms of such inhuman activities.
“If there are morals, issues of corruption would be a thing of the past. Your morality is your personality.
“Therefore, persons of high moral decadence are not right to lead us. He should honourably resign,” the former lawmaker said.
Egberongbe also expressed disappointment in Alex Badeh, the immediate past Chief of Defence Staff, who complained last week about poor morale, lack of funding and no enough equipment in the military.
Badeh had also said, days later, that 2006 was the last time the military got any equipment from the government.
“If Badeh was for the people and truly swore an oath to that profession, which entails securing the lives of people and the country, he shouldn’t have been saying he was inhibited from carrying out his duties which has resulted in the death of so many thousands of people whose lives are not replaceable.
“You were inhibited, yet you were being paid salaries and allowances monthly and you did not complain or say anything about your travails?
“What he is doing now, by stating his challenges as CDS is only playing to the gallery; nobody will ever take him seriously.
“I expected him to have spoken out when those young soldiers were being tried for mutiny. Yet those soldiers were charged and found guilty of mutiny.
“Most of us spoke in protest then, and we are now vindicated by his pronouncements that they are not well trained, not well equipped to face the insurgence.
“I expected his caliber, if he was a man of conscience, to have stood for those soldiers as they were being sentenced to death.
“Now that he is coming out to talk, it is belated. I expect him to be quiet and when asked, he should just say he came to the task, and that he failed and shirked in his responsibilities,” Egberongbe said.