Toyin who was grilled by operatives of the anti graft agency for about six hours. In a statement issued by her NGO, Well Being Foundation, after her interrogation, she pledged to support and cooperate with the EFCC in ensuring credible investigation into the allegation.

Toyin Saraki

Sources indicated that the allegations against Saraki and his wife may have been partly derived from investigations of the Senate President’s eight-year governorship tenure by the Special Fraud Unit of the Nigeria Police Force, which was then headed by Commissioner of Police, Tunde Ogunsakin who is now an Assistant Inspector General of Police. A report by SFU had detailed how during his tenure as Governor, Saraki regularly withdrew millions of naira from some bank accounts as loans granted to his companies by the banks. The SFU had stated in the report that: “the [stolen] funds were mostly washed overseas to fund Dr. Bukola Saraki’s American Express Card No. 374588216836009,” with conclusion that about $4,560,871.27 was transferred to the account of the former Governor between May 18th 2009 and May 5th 2011, mostly cash lodgments and a couple NIFT Transfers.

But it is not only in financial matters that the integrity of the Senate President has come under attack. The Senate President and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu as well as the Clerk of the National Assembly may be hauled before the court anytime from now over forgery of Senate Standing Orders used to elect principal officers when the 8^th session of the legislative body was convened on 9, June.

Senator Sulaiman Hunkuyi of Kaduna state and a member of Unity Forum had petitioned the Police, alleging that some parts of the 2015 Senate Orders were different from the one ratified by the 6th Senate in 2010, which was used by the 7th Senate, as Standing Orders 2011.

Specifically, the Senator had complained that the 2015 Senate Standing Orders, Rule 3, as contained on page four of the document, which has to do with the election of presiding officers was altered to accommodate electronic voting and secret ballot, whereas secret ballot and ballot papers were not mentioned in the 2011 Standing Orders.

The Senate Order 3 (e) (ii) of 2011 states, “Voting shall be conducted by the Clerks-at-the Table, using the Division List of the Senate with the Tellers in attendance. The Clerk of the Senate shall submit the result of the division to the Clerk of the National Assembly. (iii) The Clerk shall then declare the Senator-elect who has received the greater number of votes, elected as President of the Senate.”

But the section was altered to read “Voting by secret ballot which shall be conducted by the Clerk-at-Table using the list of the Senators-elect of the Senate, who shall each be given a ballot paper to cast his vote with the proposers and seconder as Teller. The Clerk of the Senate shall submit the result of the voting to the Clerk of the National Assembly who shall then declare Senator-elect who has received the highest number of votes as Senate President-elect,” in the 2015 Standing Order.

Also, the Kaduna State Senator also pointed that Order 95 of the 2011 rule on the chairmanship and membership of the committees was also altered in the 2015 version. Whereas, in the 2011 document, provisions in Order 95 read, “The membership of all committees shall not be less than 11 and not more than 13 senators. (2) No senator shall serve in more than three committees (3) No committee chairman shall serve in more than one other committee, ” a new insertion in the 2015 version reads, “The appointment of Senators as Chairmen and members of committees shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the six geopolitical zones of the country and there shall be no predominance of senators from a few geo-political zones.”

The two strange provisions, it was believed, was smuggled into Standing Orders at the height of bargaining between Saraki and PDP Senators over Senate leadership. It was believed that the inclusion of the secret ballot was designed to give Senators, especially those elected on the platform of APC the necessary shield to vote against their party choices in the then impending elections of principal officers. In the same vein, the alteration of order 95 of the Standing Order was believed to make it easy for Saraki to compensate the PDP members he was then relying upon to be elected as the Senate President.

Some APC Senators had said a faithful implementation of this provision will lead to nearly equal sharing of committees’ leadership position between the majority APC and minority PDP. Hunkuyi and others Senators who were part of the 7^th Senate had told the Police during investigations of the petitions that there was no time a decision was taken to amend the Standing Order during the tenure of the former National Assembly. “I made proposal for amendments between 2011 and 2015, I laid the report on the floor, but we did not consider the report. We did not amend the Standing Orders. Before we left, I had approved the reprinting of the Standing Orders and the reprinting did not include inserting anything which was not in the old one. Reprinting is, simply reproduce what we have because there are no more copies,” Senator Ita Enang who was the former Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business said in a statement to the Police seen by this magazine.