Senate President Seeks Strong Relationship Between Leaders

Senate President Bukola Saraki has made moves to strengthen his base of support at the upper legislative leadership with overtures to the bloc that has expressed reservations with the style of his emergence during last June’s leadership elections at the National Assembly.

During the wedding of Fatiha Aisha, daughter of prominent senator, Abdullahi Adamu in Keffi, Saraki used the occasion to publicly seek the support of the leader of the Senate Unity Forum that has remained vehemently opposed to his leadership of the red chambers.

The wedding ceremony which held at the University Conference Hall in Keffi at the weekend was a gathering of political heavyweights including Governor Umaru Al-Makura of Nasarawa state and Saraki, who led a retinue of senators and members of the House of representatives to the occasion.

Senator Adamu, a former governor of Nasarawa State recently assumed the status of the leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) caucus at the senate. The erudite politician was a rallying point during the recent power tussle that greeted the election of principal officers of the eighth Senate.

According to THIS DAY in July, Adamu had maintained that “moral conscience should dictate that you do not show disloyalty to the structure you stood upon to attain power and position. The present senate leadership as constituted is lacking in moral perception and makes a joke of the change that President Buhari’s government is trying to engender.”

The senator representing the people of Nasarawa West had remained resolute in his stand against the upset which many perceived the manner in which Saraki emerged as senate president. He insisted that “the right things must be done” for the senate to be perceived in better lights by Nigerians.

Sources within Saraki’s circle at the wedding revealed that the senate President chose the occasion “because of the continuous relevance of Senator Abdullahi Adamu in the scheme of things not only in the senate but across Nigeria. This is a man who commands so much influence and the senate president must need such influence and support to succeed.

“Senator Adamu is a bridge-builder and just like THISDAY reported during the leadership crisis at the senate, he is the best person to resolve whatever differences that arose in the past”, an aid to the Senate President told news reporter at the sidelines of the occasion in Keffi.

Saraki who spoke at the occasion showered encomiums at the father of the bride while imploring them to live peaceably in marriage and imbibe tolerance and understanding according to Islamic injunctions.