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The Senate yesterday formally wound up the fifth Senate, with former Senate President, Adolphus Wabara, saying that contrary to the claims by former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the aborted third term agenda, he (Obasanjo) actually wanted it, but that it was God that denied him the tenure elongation.
The Senate yesterday formally wound up the fifth Senate, with former Senate President, Adolphus Wabara, saying that contrary to the claims by former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the aborted third term agenda, he (Obasanjo) actually wanted it, but that it was God that denied him the tenure elongation.
He made this known yesterday while making his valedictory remarks on the floor of the Senate.
Similarly, the Senate has also discontinued its probe of INEC, saying time was really against it.
Wabara, who also said he was never a lackey of the executive during his two-year tenure as the Senate President, insisted that he only resigned from his position as the Senate President over the bribe-for-budget scandal to protect the integrity of the Senate and not necessarily due to pressure from the EFCC as claimed by former President Obasanjo.
'When I had the privilege of being the Senate President, some were fond of calling us stooges of the executive. But you will all remember that no executive bill ever returned the way it came. For instance, I challenged the public to check out the Labor Bill, the Pension Reform Bill, to mention but a few. Or am I to talk of the swearing in of Senators Ben Obi and Joy Emodi of Anambra State or better still, my blunt refusal to declare a state of emergency in Anambra State .
'You will also remember that we smartly reined in the executive by inserting mandatory clauses in Appropriation Bills. All these were not in line with the standard behaviours of stooges. I am content we gave a good account of ourselves," he said.
On Obasanjo's claim on the aborted third term agenda, Wabara said: 'Obasanjo wanted third term badly, but the God of Nigeria, the Allah of Nigeria, denied him his devilish plans. Fellow colleagues, knowing what I know, and I know Obasanjo, the former President knows that I know, I would advise that those of us who have been privileged by the Grace of God to be at the helms of affairs in this country should watch what we say.
We have the responsibility not to inflame the polity," he said, adding, 'I expected Obasanjo to step aside and face charges on the PTDF issue instead of clinging to power as Baba, or is it Ali Baba and the forty thieves?"
Speaking in the same vein, Senator Ben Obi, who said that Nigeria in the last eight years have actually been under a military rule, equally asked: 'Is it not amazing that Obasanjo denied knowledge of the tenure elongation agenda when in fact it was known to him that the PDP leadership came to the Senate to read riot act to PDP members who would not support tenure elongation? Thank God some of us did not, and I am sure we are happier today.
'The next National Assembly, even before it is constituted, has been severely weakened by the deliberate act of making it near impossible for experienced but independent-minded legislators to be re-elected. The losers are not the affected legislators per se, but the Nigerian people and the democratic process."
Virtually all the over 40 Senators who attended the valedictory session made their remarks with most of them calling on the in-coming Senate to rise up to the challenges before them.
Senator Saidu Dansadau said: 'Paying and collecting the new VAT rate is illegal. I will therefore implore the new Senate to reverse the illegality."