He constitutionally elected

Going to court is an exercise in futility - Ilorin NBA Chair

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mallam Yusuf Olaolu Ali, yesterday declared that Dr. Bukola Saraki was constitutionally elected as the President of the 8th Senate.

Also, the Chairman, Ilorin Bar Association, Barrister Mobolaji Ojibara, also affirmed his emergence as Senate President, arguing that the absence of the 51 All Progressives Congress Senators-elect could not nullify the election.

They spoke in separate interviews with National Pilot in Ilorin, Kwara State, on Wednesday.

Saraki had on Tuesday dared the national leadership of the party and contested against the will of the party, which adopted Senator Ahmad Lawal as its senate president candidate.

While the election into the office of the senate president was on, 51 APC senators converged on the International Conference Centre, ICC, for a purported meeting convened by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Saraki was elected unopposed, but the party threatened to sanction him just as some of the affected APC senators walked out of the senate on Wednesday and threatened to challenge his victory in court.

But Ali, in a telephone interview with this medium, said what transpired at the floor of the senate was in consonant with the provisions of the law.

He said: ''What transpired at the floor of the National Assembly is in consonant with the laws of the land, Senator Bukola Saraki’s colleagues found him worthy and elected him. Although, I believe in the party supremacy and constituted authority, it however does not distort the constitutionality of the process.

''Anybody can interpret the law to suit his personal agenda and ambition, people have coloured their views by hiding under the law to vent their opinion, even the President concurred with the process in his press statement regardless of his reservations.

''If they want their party to remain intact, the party leadership should approach the leadership of the National Assembly and reconcile all warring factions, political parties are about division and caucuses; politics itself is all about interest''.

The Ilorin NBA chairman on his part argued that voting is voluntary and that the absence of the 51 APC senators-elect at the inauguration of the 8th Senate and election of the president and Deputy senate president could not make the election a nullity.

Ojibara said: “The Point here is that if people decided not to participate in an election, does it make it null and void? No! In Nigeria, it is not all the people that participate in election, but their action does not say that the result should be declared null and void.

“The process that led to the emergence of Dr. Saraki as the president of the senate was constitutional because President Muhammadu Buhari proclaimed the inauguration of the 8th National Assembly in a letter read by the NASS clerk''.

''And if anybody approaches the court in this regard, it is an exercise in futility''.