Bolaji Abdullahi, national publicity secretary of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), says the strained relationship between former Senate President Bukola Saraki and ex-President Goodluck Jonathan began during the presidency of the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
During the public presentation of his new book, The
Loyalist, in Abuja on Tuesday, Abdullahi had said he was sacked as a minister
by Jonathan because he did not abuse Saraki during a campaign in Kwara state.
In chapter nine of the book, Abdullahi recalled how Saraki,
then chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), enjoyed close access to
the late Yar’Adua, while Jonathan, who was the vice-president, was largely
sidelined.
He said it was “easy for Jonathan to feel that Saraki and
his fellow governors, cavorting with Yar’Adua, looked down on him as that
‘deputy governor’ even though he was now the number two citizen in the
country”.
Abdullahi said Yar’Adua was aware of Jonathan’s unease and
asked Saraki to meet him to “smooth things over”.
He said, although Saraki complied, “civility tends to
override candour, and everything was generally papered over”.
According to the former minister of sports, after Yar’Adua’s
death and Jonathan’s emergence as president, there was a belief within his
circle that Saraki helped frustrate Jonathan’s emergence as acting president.
He said the Jonathan’s circle believed that Saraki aided
Yar’Adua’s retention of power “even as he lay dying in a Saudi hospital”.
Abdullahi, however, said the perception was misplaced,
noting that Saraki’s NGF proposed the “Doctrine of Necessity” adopted by the
national assembly to enable Jonathan’s ascension.
“I actually heard about the term ‘Doctrine of Necessity’ for
the first time when Governor Saraki called from Abuja asking me to draft a
statement to propose it to the National Assembly,” he said.
He said Jonathan nonetheless appeared convinced that Saraki
planned to undermine him after he was sworn in as president.
Abdullahi links the suspicion to a declaration by Vincent
Ogbulafor, then national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), that
the presidency would remain in the north in 2011.
He said Saraki participated in a northern consensus
arrangement that would have pitched a northern candidate against Jonathan at
the party primaries.
Abdullahi said that although Saraki later lost out to Atiku
Abubakar in the consensus process and reportedly supported Jonathan, this “did
nothing to assure the president of Saraki’s good intentions towards him”.
He said the tensions deepened during the fuel subsidy crisis
of early 2012.
According to Abdullahi, the Jonathan presidency believed
Saraki instigated the crisis through his October 2011 motion in the senate
seeking a probe into fuel subsidy payments.
He said the subsidy removal and the protests that followed
“shook the Jonathan government to its very foundations”.
Abdullahi said the crisis was widely believed to be “the
single most significant event that contributed to Jonathan’s unprecedented
defeat in the 2015 general elections”.
He said Saraki and Jonathan later met after the crisis subsided, at a time when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had begun probing Saraki and his family.
According to Abdullahi, Saraki asked Jonathan why the EFCC
was being used to harass him if the president desired a cordial relationship.
He said Jonathan denied involvement and promised to
investigate, describing the meeting as an attempt at reconciliation.
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