Senate President Bukola Saraki will be investigated over his tenure when a new Senate is inaugurated in June, ranking senators told Daily Trust on Sunday yesterday.

The senators, who won a return to the upper legislative chamber in last week’s presidential and National Assembly elections, said the Senate would be interested in knowing how Saraki managed its resources and handled national budgets over the four years he held sway as its president.

To stop that from happening, the lawmaker said Saraki would be willing to support a candidate that would not yield to demands to probe him for the Senate Presidency.

“There’s a possibility of probing him (Saraki) if there are infractions. But we know he would prefer a person that won’t probe him. So, among the contenders, it’s possible for Saraki to go for somebody he believes is close to him.

“But the truth of the matter is that if there are established infractions, we will push for a probe of the Saraki Senate Presidency, except if we don’t have our way.

“We’ll look at issues related to how budgets were handled and how our internal budget was spent within his four years,” the senator, who won re-election, told Daily Trust on Sunday on condition of anonymously.

Another senator, who spoke separately on the planned investigation, said the new Senate would question Saraki on a number of issues.

“This is obvious; the new leadership would check how he managed the resources of the National Assembly. It would be an in-house matter because the Legislature is independent. The Senate would also look at ways to avoid excesses, such as sabotaging the Executive through withholding or refusing to act on important bills,” he said.

When contacted to react to the likelihood of a probe of the Saraki Senate Presidency, his special adviser on media and publicity, Yusuph Olaniyonu, declined comment, saying he did not have answer to the inquiry.

Saraki became president for the 8th Senate in 2015 through a controversial circumstance that created a rift between the Federal Government and the All Progressives Congress (APC)-dominated Red Chamber of the Assembly.

The Senate President subsequently left the ruling APC over the irreconcilable differences and rejoined the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

He, however, lost his re-election bid, as well as the opportunity to return to the Senate when he was defeated in the contest for the Kwara Central senatorial district last week.

•Excerpted from a Daily Trust report

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