ENUGU, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)- Femi Adesina, former aide to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, has exposed in his book “Working with Buhari: Reflections Of A Special Adviser, Media And Publicity (2015 – 2023)” that ex-Senate President Bukola Saraki, along with former House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara and ex-Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, orchestrated a plan to seize the leadership of the National Assembly in 2015.
Adesina details how Saraki collaborated with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lawmakers to secure the necessary support, as a considerable number of senators from the All Progressives Congress (APC) were not aligned with him.
Despite the party leadership’s unawareness, the plot unfolded, leading to Saraki and Dogara’s emergence as National Assembly leaders, a development that left President Buhari dissatisfied.
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Adesina recounts the pivotal moment when, in the President’s living room at Aso Drive, they learned of the ongoing Senate session on television, realizing that the constitutionally required number had been achieved through a collaboration of renegade APC members and the PDP.
He wrote: “Unknown to the party leadership, Senator Bukola Saraki, a former Kwara State Governor, and Hon. Yakubu Dogara, from Bauchi State, had plotted to seize the leadership of the National Assembly.
“To get the necessary figures, Saraki was in league with the PDP, his former party, as a significant number of APC senators were not with him.
“We were in the President’s living room at Aso Drive, preparatory to driving to the International Conference Centre (ICC) for the meeting with APC legislators, when we saw on television that the Senate had already been convened, and election was in progress.
“The requisite constitutionally required number had been made up by renegade APC members and the PDP.”