Wole Adedeji
It is called ‘Ile L’oke’ and it is a factory of some sort, a place where politicians and public office holders in Kwara State are produced. For over four consecutive decades, nobody could become anything in the state except he or she was handpicked or ordained from Ile L’oke.
Ile L’oke, located along Iloffa Road, inside GRA in Ilorin, is the residence of the Sarakis. Life in this house was always a beehive of political activities, especially when the patriarch, the late Dr. Olusola Saraki was alive. There, it was that the political icon would sit on the throne of a political dynasty that he created for a very long time.
While the senior Saraki was alive, his home was a political ‘mecca’ for his followers, who on daily basis thronged the sprawling complex, whether he was around or away. But, when the followers noticed that ‘Oloye’, as he was fondly called was around, they would trek long distances, while others would come in lorry loads.
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Saraki was such a powerful figure that, even during the many military regimes when there were no politics in the air, the place was always filled with some hysterical festivities. Whenever he came to town, the saying was always that the ‘eagle has landed’.
It was always a sight to behold with hundreds and even thousands of able bodied men and women, young and old, milling around the home and the adjoining streets, waiting for nothing serious other than to pick up pittances at the end of the day. Feeding the multitudes was not a big deal, as cooking was being done, day in, day out for as long as Oloye stayed in town. At the end of the day, each person would be entitled to a token and in some cases, some yards of clothing materials.
For these good gestures from Oloye, the people were expected to pay him back by voting for whichever candidates he was presenting for whatever positions in the state and at the national level. Observers of Kwara politics at that time noted that it was an unwritten contract between Saraki and the people. And it was executed to the satisfaction of both parties.
After the death of the senior Saraki, his son, Bukola took over and the culture of crowds gathering in the home continued, even in a more intimidating manner. Bukola, at a point did not leave anyone in doubt that he was bent on outshining his father in no small way. He had started showing these traits, even before the father passed on and his mien showed that he had no apologies for his actions. All said and done, the father died and Bukola fully took over.
He did it so much that he was described by observers, as the maximum heir in the family. But, in this new dispensation, both the family’s matriarch and Bukola’s siblings, according to observers were glaringly seen to have been be sidelined by him in many things, especially politics, which is the main stay of the family.
At a point, Bukola worked against the interest of the family, even while the father was still alive. For instance, he supported the immediate past governor of the state, Abdulfatah Ahmed, to power against his sister, Gbemisola Saraki, in 2011. For eight years, Gbemisola, who contested on the platform of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria, ACPN, was pushed into the cooler, while Ahmed, sponsored as the godson of Bukola, held sway.
This scenario has since become an indelible reference point in the political game that played out in the home of the Sarakis, especially during the 2019 general elections.
It did not come as a surprise that when President Muhammadu Buhari won his second term mandate after the presidential election, Gbemisola was appointed as a minister, being one of the chieftains of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the state.
Bukola Saraki, who became the President of the Senate on the platform of the same APC in 2015, defected back to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, from where he joined the opposition APC in 2014.
He instantly became a national leader of the opposition party. He also contested the National Assembly election to retain his seat and return to the Senate. He did not only lose that bid, but also, all his followers that he sponsored for elective positions, lost as well.
The tragedy appeared to have since sent the mighty politician to political oblivion.
With the political tragedy, the home of Olusola Saraki, the late Wazirin of Ilorin, the ‘Agoro b’ogun b’olu’, the great Oloye of his time is surely becoming desolate. In fact, the home is now deserted according to findings by our correspondent.
The crowd-pulling visits of Bukola Saraki to Kwara State have since stopped. He served as governor for eight years and a senator for another eight years. He was known to have revived the Ilorin International Airport because of the frequency of his journeys in chartered planes. His trips to Ilorin, numbering several times in a week, especially when he became the Senate President, were always greeted with organised crowds who would jam-packed the Airport to welcome him and bid him bye while going back. Such a scenario has since disappeared.
Not only that, a section of Saraki’s loyalists, who had the vicinity of Ile L’oke as their homes for not less than four decades, have equally disappeared. They were the ones called the ‘good boys’. The men earned their living by hanging around the Sarakis. They were well taken care of; they could be seen changing cars, dressed well and along the line, some of them graduated to become public office holders through either elections or appointments. All of them have now disappeared.
The strange thing is that even Gbemisola Saraki, who was a one-time member of the House of Representatives, Senator, Chairman, Governing Council of the Federal University, Otuoke, Bayelsa State and now a minister of the Federal Republic, who is expected to have her own volume of followers, has stopped coming home.
As if that was not enough, Governor AbdulRahman Abdulrazaq recently declared the occupation of a section of the home of Saraki called ‘Ile Arugbo’ illegal because the land on which it was built, which was a government land meant to build the extension of the State Civil Service Clinic was used by the Sarakis without any legitimate document of transfer or payment to the coffers of the state government for the parcel of land. It has since been ordered confiscated by the government.
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According to findings by our correspondent, there is a general lull in political activities in the state at the moment. The vibrancy of the past, where drummers and women dance away in hot sun or cold harmattan weather at the home of the Sarakis or at campaign rallies across the state, especially during campaign period is being missed.
Observers told our correspondent that the present government is not helping the matter either. The expectations of the people for an alternative to the present dull politics in the state have not been forthcoming. However, insinuations are also rife in town that there could be some underground political arrangement between APC National Leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Senator Saraki, preparatory to the next dispensation, come 2023.
The belief of Saraki’s followers therefore was that he might have possibly gone underground to reinvigorate for a tough fight ahead.
