PDP alleges that APC intends to forcefully remove Saraki using police and DSS operatives

PEOPLES Democratic Party (PDP) leaders have raised fresh fears that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is planning to forcefully remove senate president senator Bukola Saraki from office using the police and security forces.

Regarded as a personae non gratia by the APC, Senator Saraki is despised by the party leadership for his role in August when there were a series of defections in the National Assembly with about 15 senators and 37 members of the House of Representatives leaving to join the PDP. Since Senator Saraki formally defected to the PDP on July 31, APC leaders have called on him to resign his senate presidency or be impeached.

However, Senator Saraki countered that the APC does not have the two-third majority or 73 senators needed to impeach him and PDP senators have vowed to resist attempts to  remove the senate president. Since then, senator Saraki and the APC leadership have been involved in a cat and mouse game but so far, he has successfully fought off all attempts to get him impeached.

Yesterday, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP publicity secretary, said the party condemns in totality, the continued clampdown, harassment, intimidation, arrest and detention of members of the civil society organisations by the APC-led administration. He added that the plot against Senator Saraki, which is akin to the last invasion of the National Assembly is aimed at scuttling the success being enjoyed by the PDP presidential campaign organisation in its winning campaigns across the nation ahead of the 2019 general elections.

Mr Ologbondiyan said: “Part of the plot is to use the police and the Department of State Security (DSS) to fabricate spurious charges against Senator Saraki, distract him and destabilise the PDP presidential campaign. This is a scheme dead on arrival as Nigerians are solidly behind the PDP in the mission to rescue the nation from the misrule of the APC.”

In addition, the PDP said that it is privy to clandestine meetings by the Buhari presidency and the leadership of the APC, which it observed, has not been able to constitute a presidential campaign organisation. According to Mr Ologbondiyan, they are only keen to derail the PDP presidential campaign by going against Senator Saraki.

On August 7, men of the DSS sealed off the entrance to the National Assembly and senators loyal to President Muhammadu Buhari fixed a meeting at Sheraton Hotel in Abuja to impeach senate president Bukola Saraki. However, the plan failed as legislators insisted on entering the premises and APC senators could not agree on a new National Assembly leadership.