The Minister of Information Lai Mohammed has said that the APC-led Federal Government gained nothing from Senator Saraki as the Senate President in the last three years.
Lai Mohammed who was speaking during the Federal Executive Council on Wednesday in Abuja said the defection of Senator Bukola Saraki, from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) did not come as a shock to the party.
He said the party knew all along, as they gained nothing from his leadership as the Senate President, and rather than work for the benefit of Nigerians he worked against them and the President. He said:
“It is neither a surprise to us nor a blow that he has defected,” Mohammed said, adding “perhaps the only surprise is that when he eventually defected, it was more like a mere whimper.”
“If Senator Bukola Saraki were not a member of the APC, I don’t think the government and the party could have suffered more than they have already with regards to the delay in passing the budget year after year; delays in approving key government appoints that could have made the government more efficient.”
“In other words, what we are saying is that the Senate President had behaved all along as if he were a member of the opposition, deliberately slowing down the progress of the APC-led federal government.”
The Minister of Information who is also from the same State as Senator Saraki, when asked on the series of detection in Kwara state and the implications, the minister said the party in his state is stronger now, as some members of the PDP in the state have called him on their plans to defect to APC. He said:
“The true APC members in the state have come together to strengthen the party, open its doors to new members and re-position it for the 2019 elections, with a view to delivering Kwara to President Muhammadu Buhari.”
“That offers a fresh start for the APC in Kwara. No one tree, no matter how big, can make a forest. Every Kwaran is important in the emerging political dispensation in the state, and it is the realization of this new dawn that has set the state agog for the APC.”