NASS leadership: Tinubu, others offered us deals –PDP

Fresh facts have emerged on the horse-trading and trade-off that led to the emergence of Senator Bukola Saraki, Ike Ekweremadu and Yakubu Dogara as Senate President, Deputy Senate president and Speaker of the House of Representatives, respectively.

A member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Working Committee, Olisa Metuh, in an exclusive interview with Daily Sun had alleged that former Lagos State governor and  National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu actually reached out to certain leaders of the PDP to sell his anointed candidates for the positions of Senate President and Speaker, House of Representatives.

The PDP national publicity secretary further disclosed that the camps of Femi Gbajabiamila and Senator Ahmed Lawan promised PDP lawmakers in both the Red and Green Chambers, juicy committees.

Metuh said: “We call on the APC to resolve their differences. The APC leaders have wrongly accused Saraki and Dogara of negotiating with PDP and that’s why they are calling for their heads. But I can categorically tell you today that Tinubu, Lawan and Saraki, Gbajabiamila all approached PDP for cooperation for positions of Senate President and House of Representatives.

“Tinubu reached out to PDP leaders-I can tell you that he made phone calls, he negotiated- same thing with Gbajabiamila, same thing with Lawan! Saraki did the same thing and Dogara.

“So, the PDP sat down, met with our leadership in the National Assembly, the former Senate President, David Mark, the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, the deputy national chairman of our party, myself, some governors and the chairman, Board of Trustees of our party, Haliru Bello  and we looked at the offer of all the various interests in APC, to determine, which one was in the best interest of the party. “Some offered a lot to our senators in terms of key committees.

“Lawan and Gbajabiamila virtually offered PDP juicy committees, but what swayed us  and the reason why PDP endorsed Saraki and Dogara is the fact that they had been our members and because they were brought up and nurtured under the PDP, ideology they already know that the peace and unity of this country is paramount to us as a party.

“ The fact that we are for national interest and not individual interest, we decided to support people who at one time in their lives, shared the same ideology with us than people whom we know, especially the zoning that they have done and the way they allocated the offices, they are more interested in personal interest.”

Asked if the endorsement of Saraki  Dogara and others, who actually dumped the PDP would not encourage rebellion in the party, Metuh said they defected “to other parties to foster their political interest.

“ On what basis did they rebel against the party? They may not have been right, but at no point did they query the ideology of the party and put their individual interest above that of  the party. At no point did they question the ideals of the founding fathers of our party. The fact that we believe in the unity and progress of this country, they never questioned.”

So, if they went to other parties to foster their political interest, that’s different.

“If we had a choice, we would have gone for a PDP Speaker or Senate President, because PDP is an honorable party, because we already gave our words that we are going to support Senator Saraki. We decided to keep faith. If PDP had nominated anybody he would have won and they needed two third to reverse it, which they did not have . So, I think the APC should be grateful to us for being honourable. We may have lost the election but we haven’t lost decency and our diligence.”

The PDP national publicity scribe also dismissed speculation of a deal to ensure that Senator Saraki and  Dogara return to the party.

“Definitely not. It would have been insulting for PDP to make such demands from Saraki and Dogara. At no point in our discussions with them did we ask them to dump their platform for PDP.”