By WOLE ADEDEJI, Ilorin
The race to 2023 general elections in Kwara State is on again and the peculiarities of politics in the State obviously is playing up as well.
Till date, it has been others in politics versus the Olusola Saraki Political Dynasty even in death. The man successfully held sway on the political terrain of the State for close to five decades while alive and was always taking up individuals, groups or interests that rose up to carve for themselves, an image on the turf of politics. Records show that only once was Olusola Saraki defeated, and that was sone by own son; Dr. Bukola Saraki. He was the one who looked at his political icon father in the face, dared him in election contest and win against the father.
The junior Saraki raised his political godson; Abdulfatah Ahmed to face his sister in gubernatorial contest. Ahmed floored Bukola’s sister annointed by his father and the entire family. By that, The icon recorded the history of a defeat and, by his own son. The battle was firece, it is now history that made Bukola the heir, assurmed the head of Saraki Political Dynasty. His journey on the ladder was quick and fat. Not only when the day her was still alive but fatter when the father died. He is ever since referred in some quarters as an ‘enfante terrible’. He was in the Senate where he rose to become the Senate President. His father did not live to see him get to that high pinnacle.
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However, Senator Bukoka Saraki became a dogged fighter, bold as a lion and quite daring in every sphere. He was winning on all fronts especially at the national level and became very key in the national matters. The aura made him to take the home front for granted and by 2019, he paid dearly for the miscalculations. The elections of that year dealt a big blow on him. He lost all seats he sponsored in the State House of Assembly, Federal House of Representatives, the Senate and worse still, the governorship. What will certainly baffle Saraki is that AbdukRahman AbdulRazaq; the shy, the non-talking and less politically loud, dusted him.
The race is up again and keen observers are watching. The way it is, it is the Sarakis again, versus AbdulRazaq leading other Kwarans that said ‘O to Ge’ (enough is enough) two and a half years ago.
Calculations and permutations rules the game now and both sides are not joking with it. First, it is power rotation i e moving the governorship slot to the Kwara North made up of Pategi, Edu, Kaiama, Baruten and Moro Local Government Areas. Since 1967 when the State was created, this zone only produced an elected governor in the person of Alhaji Shaaba Lafiagi once. He ruled for just two years under a diarchy of General Ibrahim Babangida which was later thrown off by General Sanni Abacha.
Now, Saraki is the first to fly the kite, by announcing that he, as the leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is zoning the governorship slot to Kwara North. Apparently to pull the rug under the feet of Governor AbdulRazaq who like him (Saraki) is from Ilorin, Kwara Central. Meanwhile, he might be swimming in a troubled water again having promised his staunch followers that perhaps carry much weight than any other possible PDP aspirants that the slot will go to the zone. These prospective aspirants are all from the Kwara Central. Should he go ahead with his decision to swing to the Kwara North, he might be running the risk of a split in his camp.
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Not only that, the general belief in Kwara State is that the fear of IIorin in the political settings, is the beginning of wisdom in the state. The population of Ilorin is the largest which makes it the determinant factor in any election. Saraki may therefore be miscalculating again, if he shuns his people in Ilorin. Not even when the incumbent Governor AbdulRazaq is an Ilorin man.
Besides, the litany of alleged financial misdeeds, wrong acqiusition and sales of the state properties, fake contract costs, huge indebtedness by way of bonds and loans allegedly diverted or spent on white elephant projects and buying and reselling to self, of government assets by alleged privies and agents of his may become an issue to raise against the former Senate President in the soonest time of elections.
For instance, the newly appointed Commissioner of Communication and Culture, Mr. Bode Towoju while speaking to journslists during his familiarization tours that took him to the Correspondents’ Chapel of NUJ has promised a tough time ahead for Dr. Saraki and his followers who had been in government in the past sixteen years and held sway in the government of Kwara including his political godson, Abdulfattah Ahmed.
Towoju who spoke angrily throughout the parley hinted that he served on the panel of enquiry that investigated alleged criminal acquisition of assets and properties of the Kwara State Government since 2003 when Bukola mounted the saddle of governance in the state. He disclosed that as a member of the fact finding panel, it was stunningly found that nearly all properties of the state which he described as a “common patrimony” had been converted to be properties of individuals that served in successive governments of Kwara State before now.
He said now that it is election time and Dr. Saraki had been coming home of late busy accusing the present government of inneptitude and boasting that he is coming back to take power again, it would be neccessary to dust records and make the former Senate President answer to certain questions on the grey areas in the records of governance for sixteen years that he and his annointe persons were in government.
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Similarly, his couterpart in the Ministry of Works and Transport, Engr. Rotimi Illiasu while also featuring in a media chat disclosed that a large scale fraud were discovered in the governments of the two immediate helmsmen in Kwara State. Iliasu said for instance, several federal roads purportedly worked on by the administration of Dr. Bukola Saraki and the money collected on them from the Federal Government were fraudulently done.
He said for instance the Ilesha Baruba/Chikanda road which the then regime claimed was asphalt laid was actially mere surface dressing and yet, billions were collected for it. He said the road had collapsed and has become difficult to ask the federal government to come again and refix it. These among others across the state the Commissioner said, had become a burden on the government and the people are suffering.
He said though these issues were before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) which cannot be decided on time, the present regime is left with no other option than to find other means of raising money to work on all the roads at least fir the sake of the citizens in the affected areas abd general interests of the people.To Bode Towoju; the Communications Commissioner, the EFCC case must be completed and Saraki and his co-travellers must face the music. These are some of the issues some people feel Saraki needed to clear first, as the count down to 2023 begins.
However, Saraki’s followers would not let it go. To them, Governor AbdulRazaq has not done much in almost three years on the saddle urging him to face the job before him first before engaging in shadow chasing. They argued that the ‘O to Ge’ mantra that sent them (the Sarakis and his followers packing needed to be justified. They urged the governor to face the job expected of him as demanded by the msbdate givren to him by the electorates.
In a private chat with the Chief Preas Secretary to the governor, Mallam Rafiu Ajakaiye, he said the former Senate President and his followers needed to have some milk of kindness in them. They should pity the ‘kwarans’ whose future have been mortgaged with the volume of the people’s common patrimony that had find its way into individual pockets. According to him, the fabrics of the state’s wealth had been destroyed for sixteen years and it is quite strange that those who wrecked the havoc for sixteen years are now the same people now asking and complaining that this governrment is too slow.
To him, for a corrective government that is barely two and a half years old, it is unfair to distract it from alk efforts to perfect the wrongs done by someone else. He made reference to the saying of the late sage; Chief Obafemi Awolowo who once said; “It will take a good government, a good democracy seven years to correct one year of a bad democracy while it will also take a good democracy fifteen years to correct one year of a bad military rule”. He pointed out that sixteen years of the damage done to the destiny of Kwara State will definitely require the divine guidiance of God which the government is currently enjoying, to wadd through the murky water
Meanwhile, the Kwara Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has endorsed Dr. Bukola Saraki to go and run the presidential race in the country while they had not concluded yet, which Senatorial Zone their governorship candidate will come from. It is widely said however, that the body language of Saraki is pointing to Kwara North.
In the All Progressives Congress (APC), the governor had enjoyed the nod of both the youth and elders of the party. However, not intil the national body of the party succeeds in reconciling its aggrieved members, there may be some logs on the path of APC Kwara as the journey to 2023 commences.