Former Kwara State governor and a leading aspirant for the presidency of the 8th Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki, has identified competence and capacity to move the legislature and Nigeria forward as factors that should be the criteria for electing the next Senate president, rather than sentiments.
Saraki, who disclosed this in an interactive session with Senate correspondents yesterday, asserted that Nigeria has gone beyond the period when anyone could just sit in the saddle and try his hands at governance. He stressed that experience and ability to make the needed decisions are much needed qualities for leaders of the new dispensation.
According to him, “We need to review the way we have been doing things and start doing things right. I will ensure that the Senate makes impact on the lives of the people. The people are not feeling the impact of the parliament and they are asking what their elected representatives are doing there.
“I will provide quality direction on how to run the affairs of the country. We have to give Nigerians value for their money. The Senate must have a national agenda that will effectively address the multifarious problems confronting this country at the moment.
“Nigerians voted for APC for change so that things can be done differently. We need to allow internal democracy to take place in electing the leadership of the next assembly so that people can elect their choice candidates without interference. Let us not base choice of leadership on sentiment. The PDP lost because Nigerians were tired of the failure in the system,” he noted.
The APC bigwig, who hailed the position of the party that lawmakers should choose their leader among themselves without interference, observed that Nigerians have been denied dividends of democratic governance because leaders usually emerged through ethnic, religious and sectional sentiments rather than on the basis of qualification and competence.
Comments