NIGERIA IS BETTER OFF WITH A WARRING SENATE AND PRESIDENCY

The eventual winner in the war between the Presidency and the Senate will be the average nigerian.One who has had to sit over the years and watch his leaders loot the treasury dry.One who has helplessly watched Political yahoo boys sell him a 'change' for the worse and finally, one who can't do anything other than what he can-Watch.

Whether by the prosecution of corrupt public officers or the rejection of unqualified candidates by the Senate, Nigeria, quite ironically, seems to be better off with both parties at loggerheads.

Soon after the first shots were fired; the 'coup' by Sen.Saraki to become Senate President and his arraignment at the Code of Conduct Tribunal for falsely declaring his assets shortly afterwards, it became obvious that only one side had a strategy: the Bukola Saraki side.

He alongside his henchmen didn't waste time in wooing as many Senators as possible to his camp by painting the President an aggrieved bully and Saraki, the victim.Their ultimate goal was met in no time as it no longer was Buhari against Saraki,it was Buhari against the Senate.

A lot of political observers back then including yours truly adviced the President to shed his non-inteference stance and proceed to establish a firm grip of the party while also ensuring the emergence of a caucus to check Saraki and his loyalists. The President has done neither and it is proving costly.

The righteous toga is sitting pretty on the Senate at the moment and that is where the interest of the eventual winner; the average nigerian lies.The Senate most certainly makes a great watch for him.It is a far cry from the days where the Senate served as a 'man Friday' to rubber stamp what is required of it by the executive.

This senate has placed heavy reliance on a highly indicting DSS report  to reject the nomination of Ibrahim Magu as EFCC Chairman.The Presidency is still refusing to let go of Magu and is even said to be considering sending his name for a third time despite revelations the report sent to it was even more detailed as to Magu's undesirability.No matter what angle one chooses to view things from,the truth won't change-the Senate doesn't want a man lacking integrity to run the EFCC while the Presidency does.

President Buhari in a letter to the Senate, stated that its call for the sack of the Secretary General of the Federation,Babachir Lawal for fraud in the grass cutting scandal was unwarranted as he had not being given a chance to defend himself.The SGF acted true to the saying 'the guilty are afraid' by opting to go to court to challenge the summons issued by the Senate instead of going there to clear his name.This was the reason he gave a day before the hearing before doing a 360 to say he had a pressing engagement that clashed with the set date in a letter to the Senate.

When Senator Dino Melaye first alleged the FG had secretly disbursed $4 billion Paris Club funds to state governments back in 2016 and called on the EFCC to monitor how the funds would be utilized, the first reaction of the Finance Minister was to flat out deny and even go as far as saying there was no such money to be shared.She later retraced her steps.

Now the second tranche of the Paris Club refunds are set to be released and the Federal government has remained persistent in turning down requests by Nigerians,Civil society and media to give extensive details of the first payments amidst allegations of misuse by the state governments. This has led many to believe that even those at the very top may have dipped into the cookie jar.

The Senate may have set out to make life difficult for the President and though both were always going to war within the confines of morality, the Senate has done so in a more righteous manner.The second shot many expected the Presidency to take against Saraki was another prosecution for the money laundering scandal that rocked the globe popularly refered to as #PanamaPapers.It happened when hypocrisy hadn't crept into President Buhari's anti-corruption war and we thought if not for anything but the neck of the Senate President, we were going to join the host of countries that were prosecuting its corrupt officials. Perhaps because there were some friends on the list,notably Aliko Dangote and Gen.Theophilus Danjuma,the Presidency swept the matter under the carpet.

There are times when the Senate has over reached itself like when it demanded that the Comptroller-General of the Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (Rtd) appear before it in his uniform without any legal backing but there is no denying that Bukola Saraki and his cohorts have so far acted more in the best interests of the nation.

That is what matters most to the onlooking nigerian-the best interests of the nation. He would rather our leaders battle themselves to make this nation a better place than live in peace and watch it wither.

BUHARI SHOULD NOT REST, HE SHOULD RESIGN

"Honor is like an island, rugged and without a beach.Once we leave it,we can never return"-Nicolas Boileau-Despereaux

President Muhammadu Buhari announced soon after returning from a medical leave lasting a month and 19 days that Acting President Yomi Osinbajo was going to continue in that capacity as he still needed to 'rest'.I totally understand the need for that as a lot of us already knew he was battling something serious for the Presidency to keep the nature of his ailment under wraps.If it were a medical condition not worth losing any sleep over,I trust Femi Adesina to have disclosed it to us in a bid to allay fears,dispel mischief and assure us we weren't sold damaged goods.But what we kept getting instead were updates on test results and who was visiting.Mr Lai Mohammed as the publicity secretary of the Action Congress in 2009 demanded that the then Minister of Information updated Nigerians daily on the state of President Yar'adua's health.It is ironic that in consonance with the hypocrisy we have now grown accustomed to, he didn't do so when Buhari was away.

Soon after the President arrived 10 hours late to an APC Presidential campaign rally in Delta state, reports surfaced complete with a medical report on how the President was been treated for acute prostrate gland cancer at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria in Kaduna state.Nobody took them serious and we all waved them off as one of the PDP's numerous antics at fighting off its most potent opposition ever.It felt a desperate move at a most desperate time but in the present circumstance,those reports deserve a lot more attention than they got then.Governor Ayo Fayose and others that warned us to choose life over death and not vote a man that could die in office now seem special recipients of messages from above.

What we have to work with suggests we have a 74 year old President who suffers from an ailment grave enough for his doctors to refuse to release him before his test results are out and also grave enough to be kept secret from everyone.

If Buhari is half the man almost everyone thought he was,he would have tendered his resignation and gone on to cater full time to his health.If not for anything but for his love for this great nation.The Buhari sold to Nigerians was one who believed we deserved the best from our leaders and one who was modest,contented and didn't deem the Presidency a do-or-die affair.

A lot of those who clapped back at Governor Fayose back then actually vouched for his integrity by claiming the Buhari they knew wouldn't spend an extra day in office if his age or health would constitute a hindrance to the effective discharge of his duties.That doesn't seem to be the case.

In the end he is no different from the other politicians out there who would cling onto power at all costs.He is no more honourable than your average nigerian politician who would rather die on the sick bed in his office than relinquish power.I saw a recent photo of the ex-Taraba state governor on a wheel chair and I wondered if Tarabans were actually waiting for the man to get well and resume in office.

Buhari's man of integrity toga only makes it difficult to rationalize his reluctance to step down.He cannot claim to worry about what would become the fate of Nigerians if he does so as the acting President has proved more than equal to the task with the yeoman's job he has done so far.Virtually every poll I saw online ended with the majority wanting Osinbajo to continue in a substantive capacity.The Ag.President's surprise visit to the Murtala Mohammed International airport Lagos to inspect facilities gave a lot of us an insight into what it felt like to have a vibrant leader on the good side of age.

And talking about age,the President himself has admitted it would limit his capabilities in honouring his bond with the people.Add that to his health state and you have a man who is guaranteed to serve us at a minimal capacity.This ought to have been the clincher if indeed he has sat down to consider towing the path of honour.

The theory that the profligacy of the PDP is responsible for all of our current problems has been disproved by none other than his Vice-President who needed just the amount of time the President was away to pay strategic visits to the Niger-Delta to meet the right people and pull the right strings in a more diplomatic approach a lot of us feared a 'hard man' like PMB wasn't capable of adopting to ensure none of our oil installations were bombed ever since.He pursued rigorous enforcement of the CBN policy on foreign exchange and thanks to that its N463 to a dollar today.A lot of us remember even without this new policy,he was able to help the naira claw back 14 points during President Buhari's first medical leave.

The President's performance quite sincerely has been below par and it would be better to leave and have Nigerians attribute it to whatever reason his honourable act propels them towards,most likely illness than to give them less than they deserve.