Date: 2019-03-15

The Senator-elect for Kwara Central, Dr Ibrahim Oloriegbe, has promised to surpass the achievements so far made by the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki.

Oloriegbe, who defeated Saraki in the just-concluded National Assembly election, said his performance in the Senate within the next four years, would surpass whatever achievements that were being attributed to the former Kwara State governor in his last eight years in Senate.

The APC senator-elect stated this on Thursday in Abuja after collecting his certificate of return from the Independent National Electoral Commission.

He said, "Despite attaining the position of Senate President in his sojourn in the Senate, Saraki has not set any standard of performance for any successor to study or build on.

"The responsive representation I will put up for Kwara Central people within the next four years, coupled with the required legislative engagements to be made on both the floor and at committee levels for good governance in the country, will surpass whatever performance Saraki has rendered in the past.

"Saraki, by his brand of politics and inordinate political ambition, focuses more on national politics and not responsive and quality representation for Kwara Central people who are his constituents.

"It is God that gives and takes power from whosoever he wishes. I thank the Almighty Allah for granting me the grace of being overwhelmingly elected as Senator for Kwara Central in the coming ninth Senate.

"I have the pedigree of service to people and humanity as a trained medical doctor, who had spent decades working with the World Health Organisation and I also have years of experience on the political field rendering selfless service to people and humanity.

"I was the majority leader of Kwara State House of Assembly from 1999 to 2003 under the late Governor Muhammed Alabi Lawal .

"My focus in the Senate will squarely be on how to ensure legislative engineering, and provide quality and responsive representation."

Oloriegbe also pledged to improve the lots of his constituents and collaborate effectively with eight other federal lawmakers from the state to support the governor-elect, Abdulrahaman Abdulrasaq.

His counterpart from Kwara South, Lola Ashiru said the new set of elected political office holders in the state at all levels, would collaborate to give the greatest good to the greater number of Kwarans in months to come.

Ashiru said, “We are aware of expectations on ground and enormous challenges at hand, but as people who are out to serve and not to lord over the electorate, Kwara will surely be better off with the change that had taken place in the state .

"We shall not disappoint Kwarans in anyway."

Also, the senator-elect from Kwara North, Umar Sadiq, said he has the strong conviction that the issue of marginalisation that has been the lots of his constituency under successive governments in the past under successive, would be a thing of the past.