The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara State has noted with concern the calls in some quarters for the resignation of the Senate President, Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki due to the allegations of false declaration of assets by the Code of Conduct Bureau. The Party dismissed such calls as preposterous, ridiculous and misplaced.

Firstly, Senate President Bukola Saraki enjoys the mandate of his colleagues in the Senate. He presently holds in trust the mandate of an overwhelming majority of Nigerian senators and as long as his colleagues still find him worthy of their collective mandate, no other power or principalities, no matter how highly placed can decide otherwise.

Secondly, Senator Saraki enjoys the mandate of his constituents in the Kwara Central Senatorial District. Since he consulted with and sought the nod of his constituents before contesting for the office of the Senate President, the question of whether he should resign or not lies squarely with those whose mandate he represents in the Senate and not any external body.

Thirdly, Senator Saraki is protected by our laws; the fact that charges have been preferred against him in a court, much less before a moribund military-era Tribunal, is not an automatic presumption of guilt. By our laws, he is presumed innocent until the contrary is proven which proof has to be done beyond every reasonable doubt.

It is on the basis of the above that we ask the Senate President to discountenance the calls in some quarters for his resignation as the President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Should he resign, he would have caved-in to the satanic pressure being mounted by the same elements that set the machinery of the law against him in the first instance. By resigning, he would have betrayed his innocence, thereby giving his traducers further impetus to drag his name in the mud. This will be a great disservice to his senator colleagues and his constituents whose mandates he freely holds.

Although, it is being canvassed that the charges preferred against him before the Code of Conduct Tribunal will be dropped as soon as he resigns as the Senate President, but we hold and advise to the contrary. It is our contention that the most honourable way is the hard way of exhausting the remedies available to him before the law to challenge the trumped-up charges. He has a date with history and we urge him to seize the moment to shame his detractors once and for all.

Finally, we affirm that Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki has paid his dues for the sustenance of the Nigerian nascent democracy over the last two decades that he held privileged positions of leadership in the country.

The true test of leadership is the amount of challenges that are faced and surmounted. As a Presidential Adviser on Budget, two-term Governor of Kwara State, Chairman of the Nigerian Governors' Forum and now a second-term Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, it will be preposterous to think that Senator Bukola Saraki's path will not be rough.

This phase too should therefore be seen as part of the rough paths of leadership and like those challenges he has faced and surmounted in the past, this too shall pass.

SIGNED:

Alhaji Sulyman Buhari

APC Publicity Secretary (Kwara State)