Former Senate President Bukola Saraki has criticized Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai for claiming to have thwarted the All Progressives Congress (APC) restructuring plan.
El-Rufai claimed in a recent interview with BBC Hausa that he and his party prepared a restructuring report and met with the National Assembly leadership to amend the Constitution in 2018.
He also claimed that Saraki, as Senate President between 2015 and 2019, thwarted the restructuring plan.
In a statement issued Saturday in Abuja by his media aide, Yusuph Olaniyonu, Saraki described the Kaduna governor as a pathological liar.
Saraki claimed that the APC, El-Rufai, and other state governors thwarted the eighth National Assembly’s efforts to restructure Nigeria.
According to the former Senate President, the National Assembly launched the constitutional amendment process in February 2016 by establishing committees in both chambers.
As a result, he stated that El-statement Rufai’s is not only false but also demonstrates how the governor of Kaduna is fond of making excuses and trading blame to explain his and his party’s failures.
The statement reads in part:
El-Rufai claimed he and his party prepared a report on restructuring and engaged with the National Assembly leadership to amend the Constitution in 2018 when as of February 2016, more than two years earlier, the eighth National Assembly had commenced the constitution amendment process by setting up committees in both chambers
Members of the committees traversed the entire country and came up with reports and draft bills. By 2018, as El Rufai mentioned, Buhari had commenced assent to constitutional amendment bills.“Out of the 32 Constitution Bills considered by the National Assembly, 24 secured the required number of votes on the floors of both chambers. Also, when the 24 were sent to the state Houses of Assembly, only 12 bills got the required votes.
El-Rufai, according to the former governor of Kwara state, was one of the governors who obstructed the passage of most bills by the State Houses of Assembly.
Saraki stated that even after the state Houses of Assembly adjourned, the President only signed five of the 12 bills presented to him in 2018 and refused to sign seven others.
He asked Kaduna State’s governor to explain how his state has implemented key restructuring bills signed into law by the eighth National Assembly, led by Saraki, such as the Financial Autonomy for State Legislature and Judiciary Act.
He observed:
If the APC was elected into power in 2015 and El-Rufai and his cohorts were talking about amending the Constitution to implement restructuring three years later when the government had less than a year to the end of its tenure, the restructuring agenda must be an after-thought or a less important one on the hierarchy of issues on the APC’s plate.
It should also be noted that it has been a clear 44 months since Saraki left office as Senate President. Within that period, El- Rufai and his party have the Senate President they want and the type of Senate they want, yet they have not done anything to restructure Nigeria.
We have not seen the so-called ‘excellent’ report of his committee being translated into bills and assented to by the President. He even claimed his committee drafted restructuring bills.
El-Rufai should tell Nigerians if Saraki is also the one that is responsible for the high level of insecurity, which has escalated from just the North-east to a menace that has now engulfed the whole of Nigeria under the APC administration.