Senate Presidency: Saraki’s emergence and high expectations

The political attainment of Kwara State indigenes has never been this precious. As a matter of fact, this is the highest a Kwaran has achieved in a democracy, rising to become the President of the Senate of the Federal Republic. And who better will achieve this than the two-time senator and former governor of the state, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki. He has thus joined the bastion of other greats like the first senate president and first president of Nigeria Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Dr. Nwafor Orizu and Dr. Chuba Okadigbo. He won a keenly contested race during the week and emerged victorious with deft political calculations and alliance that left his opponents drooling. However, the 7th president of the senate has his job cut out for him. The 8th National Assembly has a lot of work to do; and he is the chairman. First is that because he has with his new position become a very senior member of his party, he has more at stake ensuring that he unites members so that his party can deliver the change they promised Nigerians. At least, with the deal he struck with the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, it is safe to assume that it will be easy to get executive bills that will impact the people passed because the legislature is the institution that must find means to work between the aisles. And what better way than what the President of the Senate has shown ab initio. However, he must work hard to calm frayed nerves. That's politics! While doing that, it is our considered opinion that Dr. Saraki has the intellectual capacity and administrative sagacity to birth a new and dynamic National Assembly. As a two-term governor, who also led the Nigeria Governors' Forum with panache, he understands where the fault lines lie. He also understands the social issues that blight our growth as a nation. Therefore, he is in the best position to prepare a viable legislative agenda that will support an “open National Assembly” that will promote reduction of legislative expenditure, new code for legislative activism, proper legislative oversight and a welfarist agenda that will reduce poverty in Nigeria. It is not a mean task in a senate that has diverse interests and outlook. Having said that we will also advise that the president of the senate should also gather good hands that will serve as his core staff and strategists like it's done in other climes. These people will ensure proper streamlining of what can be done and when. There is little need to position politicians alone around the new number three citizen. His output on the floor of the senate is sine gua non to the quality of advice he gets off plenary. This must be a very business like senate. The National Assembly must not be a sleeping giant. It must be heard and felt. All the promises he made prior to election must be seen to be worked on. He promised also to help to open up the oil sector, the whole subsidy regime and other opaque governance circles. May we add that it is important that part of his agenda should include the power sector and whatever may have happened to the privatisation of generation and distribution companies? The new Senate President is 52 years old politician trained as a medical doctor in England. Interestingly, his professional and working life was more in the financial sector where he rose to become an Executive Vice chairman of a bank. He was first exposed to public service in early 2000s when he was appointed a special assistant to then president Olusegun Obasanjo on budget matters. In 2003, he contested and won to become governor of Kwara State and served two terms. His tenure witnessed commendable and verifiable landmarks. It was his hard work that returned public investment in agriculture to renewed focus. Since that time, more governments look towards agriculture as a means to diversifying the economy. For sure, agriculture has changed the fortunes of this state. The Kwara Central senator also introduced far-reaching reforms at the Governors' Forum. He made that forum popular and many governors began to salivate about getting to be chair of that organisation. The Saraki dynasty is alive and kicking. His father, the Oloye was senate leader in the second republic, his sister, Gbemi was senator too earlier in this republic and he has crowned it with becoming the chairman of the National Assembly.