Finally, we are beginning to see him sweat. Bukola Saraki created
for himself the reputation of a shrewd politician capable of winning
elections and coasting his party to electoral victory at all times in
Kwara State.
As the “Political leader” in the state, no one dared aspire to any
political position without prior endorsement from the so-called
godfather of Kwara politics. Or so it was, before the recent
Presidential and National Assembly elections that took place on
Saturday.
In a show of frustration, chanting the “O to ge” slogan meaning
“enough is enough” the people of Kwara State mobilized massively to vote
against the Saraki Dynasty, the machinery that had held the state to
ransom, producing every Governor since 1979.
Before the just concluded elections, the signs had started to show
during the bye- elections that took place late last year in the state.
APC snatched the House of Representatives seat that was up for grabs in
Kwara South, following the demise of Hon. Funke Adedoyin.
Before Bukola, there was his father, Olusola. The late Olusola
Saraki was popular across the state. He was loved, admired, feared and
supported. He understood the people’s pains and didn’t interfere much in
the process of choosing party candidates at various levels. He allowed
local party chapters to choose their flag bearers and this made it easy
for him to always deliver Kwara at the polls, only interfering
occasionally. He produced Adamu Attah, the Egbira Prince, as Governor in
the First Republic. Olusola later produced other Governors namely
Cornelius Adebayo, Mohammed Shaba Lafiagi, Mohammed Lawal and Bukola,
his son. Bukola emerged in Kwara political scene in 2002 after his
father fell out with then then governor of the state, Late Admiral
Mohammed Lawal. The then strongman of Kwara politics Olusola Saraki
defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from the All Nigeria
Peoples Party. I remember reading in one of the Nigerian Tribune
editions published in 2002, a few months to the general elections of
2003 where the senior Saraki was quoted as bragging that “I have made
three Executive Governors in Kwara State. The fourth one, Bukola my son,
is coming.” The next year, the Oloye, as he was popularly called,
fielded his son Bukola to run against Lawal, beating the latter at the
polls to emerge as Kwara State Governor. The father’s prediction came to
past. Bukola held sway as Governor from 2003 to 2011.
As Bukola was leaving government house, he snatched party
structures in the state from his father and fielded his best friend the
then state commissioner of finance Abdulfatah Ahmed. But Bukola refused
to follow the old man’s footsteps of allowing local party structures to
select popular candidates for positions of Local Government Chairman,
Member State House of Assembly, Member House of Representatives, Senate
and office of the Governor.
He didn’t want smart, popular candidates to
emerge on the political scene with the attendant risk of having them
gain popularity and acquire resources to challenge his authority in the
future. Bukola preferred to dominate the scene. He singlehandedly
nominated everyone who would run for office in Kwara with the exception
of only councillorship positions, which he considered too micro to
attract his attention.
In the period that he reigned as the political leader in Kwara, Bukola used everything at his disposal to achieve his aim.
While most Kwarans know Saraki as an oppressive, arrogant political
leader with inferiority complex, other Nigerians only saw him as a
statesman and political heavyweight who could pull any election in his
home state. Even the Nigerian press made his name synonymous to
popularity in Kwara. What a tragedy! Most people never read in between
the lines to see that Bukola has always had federal might going for him
all through his political career. In 2003, 2007 and 2011 he was a member
of the PDP and he and his candidates coasted to victory using state
government money, incumbency and federal might (including heavy
deployment of security agents to intimidate voters during elections).
The election that led to his emergence as a first-time senator in 2011
was largely believed by people in Ilorin to have been won by Ibrahim
Yahaya Oloriegbe, but Bukola used federal powers to sway things his way.
Today, Oloriegbe has taken back his madate.
The first time Bukola Saraki and his candidates contested elections
on a party that was not in control of the federal government was in
2015. In that instance, he and his men rode on the Muhammadu Buhari
bandwagon to scale through. In 2019 Bukola Saraki and his anointed men
in Kwara contested elections against the Buhari bandwagon and against
federal might. To make matters worse for them, that federal might is
Buhari himself. During last Saturday’s elections (February 23rd 2019)
Saraki and all his PDP travelers got a bloody nose. APC won all
Senatorial and House of Representatives seats in the state, the first
time power in the state has evaded the Saraki Dynasty since 1979,
exactly four decades ago.
Bukola has never been a democrat. During his reign, nobody was
allowed to buy expression of interest forms for any elective position in
his party in Kwara. He would buy up all the forms and share to
“anointed” candidates. A great departure from what the situation should
be in a democracy. The only time he allowed a something that looked like
a contest was in 2018 between his lackeys Hon. Zakari Mohammed, Bolaji
Abdullahi, Razaq Atunwa etc.Even at that, he prevailed on them to step
down for Atunwa.
Bukola is a very arrogant. I heard personal stories of some
Senators in the 7th Assembly (2011 to 2015) who complained that if you
were not a former governor in the Senate, Saraki would snub you in the
chambers, declining to shake hands with you. He began to become friendly
to “lesser mortals” when he wanted to become Senate President after the
2015 elections.
After the APC won majority seats in the Senate in 2015, Bukola
started scheming to be Senate President, even though some party
stalwarts didn’t want that. He had to resort to anti-party activitiesto
get the seat by conceding the position of Deputy Senate President to the
opposition PDP. While many Nigerians celebrated his emergence as
President of the Senate through treachery, many politicians from Kwara
were appalled and disgusted because he had severely punished some of
them for minor anti-party activities that were not as horrible as what
he did to become Senate President.
Tomorrow, February 26, 2019, Bukola’s Senate will reconvene. He
will use his lackeys Senator Rafiu Adebayo Ibrahim or Senator Shaba
Lafiagi to give a false account of what transpired in Kwara on Saturday.
They will use phrases such as “voter intimidation”, “Killing of PDP
supporters”, “the elections were rigged” “democracy is under attack”
blah, blah, blah. He has good propaganda machinery. The people of Kwara
will not be bothered. The chicken has come home to roost.
As the nation prepares for the gubernatorial elections in less than
two weeks, Kwarans are plotting a retirement plan for Saraki’s boy
Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed a.k.a “Maigida”. We shall return home and vote
in a similar pattern to send these oppressors to permanent retirement.
Until then, we have to celebrate. As a devout Muslim, I don’t drink
bear. But I can do with zobo or kunun zaki. Here’s a toast to the fall
of the oldest political dynasty in Nigeria.
Good bye Bukky. O to ge!
A.A Galadima wrote this piece from Abuja
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