Senator Ishaq Adebayo Salman was the deputy minority leader in the 4th Senate, between 2001- 2003. He tells ABDULLAHI OLESIN in this interview why leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) must close ranks with the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki and give him the needed support. He also spoke on some other national issues.

What really do you think Kwara State stands to gain from Dr Bukola Saraki’s Senate Presidency?

The Senate President is the number three citizen and the head of the first arm of government. That itself has already brought Kwara into the country’s political limelight. But unfortunately, the legislature is the least understood among the three arms of government because of the incessant military interregnum we have had in the past. The legislature passes the budget and the budget makes the country.

It is a proposal, but the government can rarely go outside what the legislature has approved to do anything. Even being an ordinary member of the senate is a great advantage because you can attract a lot of things to your constituency. You have an advantage of being where things happen. Now as a principal officer, there is a committee of the whole house that takes charge of things at the National Assembly, and its head is the senate president. Many of the things you see the federal government doing here and there are being influenced by the president of the senate and the senator from that region in the budget.

If the president of the country does anything outside the budget, it is a contravention of the constitution and an impeachable offense. Most of the appointments made by the president do not happen without the knowledge of the senate president. So, the advantage is so enormous and numerous in terms of appointments and infrastructure. That is why he (Saraki) deserves to be given all the support because it is not always often that a state gets this opportunity. He is also an international man and can attract lots of investment also. Hopefully, when this crisis normalise, we will start seeing the dividends of that position.

As a former minority leader of the senate, what is your take on the controversy that surrounded Saraki’s emergence as senate president?

Let me first correct something. During our time, 1999-2003, we were regarded as the guinea pig Senate. We were the one that fashioned out most of these things. There was no minority then because we had about three parties. I was the deputy minority leader of the ANPP. I was in the six-man committee that was first set up by the senate that fashioned out the rules we are using today. We had a template of the 1989 senate at that time. The rules of the senate is very simple, subject to the constitutional provision, that there shall be a senate president and his deputy among the members. This was done without emphasis on parties.

We have been in opposition for a very long time and in this regard, you can even protest against yourself because it was out of ingredient of survival then as opposition. There is no doubt that there were mistakes along the line because we were new. The bane of banana peels in the senate had always been through imposition. Our senate was the most troubled and most unstable because we had three senate presidents and until we chose our own, there was no peace.

You see, the senate is not a place for imposition. There is a way a party can impose if it wants and not like this. The issue was first about zoning, which the party can zone to anywhere but leave the people to decide on the candidate they want from the region. The moment one is particular about a candidate, there will be problem. The senate is the house of equals and the president is one among that equals and that is why he is a very powerful man in the country. When this thing happened, we were even lucky the PDP did not snatch the seat. If we had made the mistake of not conducting any election as specified, it would have become a nullity because somebody can go to court on it.

There was not retraction of that letter (President’s proclamation of the 8th Senate), which has a procedure. Then we had 48 PDP senators and we needed only 37, which is one third of the total number. So they (PDP Senators) could have gone ahead to elect themselves as President and Deputy and there is nothing anybody can do about it because you need 73 votes to remove any of them and the APC has only 60. Bukola should be commended for saving APC. That is all we have been saying about allowing the senate to chose their man. Despite all the issues regarding the election and intrigues of Bukola Saraki, the senate has twice passed a wide vote of confidence on him, irrespective of what the party says. Bukola just needs to be at home with his fellow senators.

What is the way forward now that the issue has gotten to this level?

Whatever cannot be helped must be endured. He has emerged even though he may not be the choice of the party, which is subject to many interpretations. It happened during the time of Tambuwal. Rather than continue the friction, we should make the best of the situation we have found ourselves and accept it.

We have to be very careful as APC because the expectations from the people are enormous and we cannot afford to continue this bickering. The country is in a very bad shape. If we continue to press on this, it may lead to factionalisation. What we should be concerned with is whether the person there now is performing. So far, he has been one of the best senate presidents we have had within the short time we have had him despite the crisis.

The issues between the Senate President and Tinubu reached a crescendo last week. With the kind of comments coming from both leaders, how best do you think the APC as a party should wade into this?

The two of them are not people you can wish away because they are powerful people in the party. I don’t think there is anything personal about it and it’s easy to resolve. That is where the leadership should come in and the president must wade in at this time. He has to discard all the issues that he is not a politician and can work with anybody. This “siddon look” posture is what got us to this stage in the first place. Let the leaders come together and meet and trash out all the differences. I don’t see any reason clinging to one position. The country is a very big enterprise and everybody can have things.