Senate President Bukola Saraki is thinking about running against President Muhammadu Buhari when Africa's best oil maker holds elections in February.

"I am counseling and currently thinking about it," Saraki, 56, said Tuesday in a meeting at his home in the capital, Abuja. “I believe I can make the change.”

After as of late abandoning from the decision All Progressives Congress, Saraki said that on the off chance that he chose to run, it would be under the pennant of the People's Democratic Party, the primary resistance gathering. He would need to win the gathering's ticket amid essential elections in October.

Inconsistent with Buhari as far back as he rose as the senate pioneer against the president's desires in 2015, Saraki is a previous individual from the PDP who notwithstanding joining the APC, frequently conflicted with the partisan division.

His defection a month ago back to the PDP came in the midst of a flood of such takeoffs from the APC, including many senators and no less than two state governors. After security agents encompassed Saraki's home a month ago for undisclosed reasons, the mystery police briefly blocked access to the National Assembly on Aug. 7, in what Saraki said was an illicit endeavor to arraign him. The leader of the State Security Services was expelled over the arrangement.

Confidence Lost

“If a government can go and lock up an arm of government — and it’s never happened in our history — we should all be very concerned,” Saraki said. “We should not be surprised that they would use security agencies for elections.”

Investors and citizens have lost confidence in the president, according to Saraki, the nation’s third ranking official after Buhari and his deputy. Buhari’s election victory in 2015, which marked the first time an opposition party won power at the ballot box and put an end to 16 years of PDP rule, came after he pledged to fix the economy, improve security and fight corruption.

While Buhari’s administration has raised record amounts of money in oversubscribed Eurobond sales and increased revenue to boost investments in roads, rail, ports and power, poverty remains widespread in Nigeria and the nation is still dealing with deadly violence in several regions.

To win the PDP ticket at the party’s primaries on Oct. 5 and 6, Saraki would need to beat another presidential aspirant, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who also defected from the APC last year.

Saraki said Nigeria needs to be governed by a genuinely pro-business administration that will be able to tackle recurrent security issues. Below are some excerpts from the interview:

On investment:

“Most of the inflows that have come in are merely hot money, and that is because the oil price has gone up. Investment in the real sector is not seen. The private sector, in my view, has probably taken a position that the confidence is not there in the government. The country requires a government that is truly pro-business, and a president that sees himself as a chief marketing officer.”
On the involvement of security forces in political matters:

“There has been a persistent disregard for due process and a lack of neutrality for some of these issues. For you to have credible elections, you must have safe elections. Security agencies are actively getting involved in the politics.”

“The fundamentals of whatever we are going to develop is going to be based on sound democracy, credible elections, freedom of choice of Nigerians. If we don’t have that as a foundation, then everything else cannot happen.”

On gasoline subsidies:

“If we are going to have a subsidy, we should have a budget for it. Because once we have a budget for it, the private sector can also play a role in the importation of petroleum products. And if the private sector plays a role, definitely the cost of the subsidy will go down and there will be more efficiency in the delivery of products. But in the environment we are in today, where it’s only the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. that’s doing that, it’s going to be inefficient, it’s not going to be transparent.”
On the PDP:

“The PDP has learnt its lesson from the loss in 2015, and I think unfortunately the APC did not learn from their victory.”

While negotiating with the PDP “we listed a number of issues. We talked about how to sustain and improve the fight against corruption; the issue of providing more powers to the states; inclusion and having a more nationalistic approach on things we do; to continue to improve the environment that will ensure investments. We listed a number of items during the discussions with the PDP, and there is a written agreement to that. We trust that we can hold them to that.”

“We would ensure that the party is strong on security. The APC too have not done well on the issue of security. We have the opportunity with the right kind of presidential candidate and president to provide the leadership for the party. The party has a good opportunity to lead the country in the right direction.”

Source: PmNewsNigeria