“Weep not” Nigerians for Bukola Saraki. What has befallen him is from nemesis, Karma and what, in Christianity, is known as divine Providence. It has come to a time in Nigeria when we should put the spirit of our constitution to work, even if the letter seems to be abused. There are politicians who have acquired for themselves permanent patronage in politics, and if this patronage was derived from sound mindedness and service delivery, no one would worry, but unfortunately, those who think to perpetuate themselves in holding political offices in this country must be asked to go back home for none performance and debauchery. The spirit of Federal Character as enshrined in our constitution forbids those who have enjoyed political patronage since 1999 to continue aspiring. This conflict in constitutional provisions must be addressed in favor of majority of Nigerians.
A man like Bukola Saraki, after running down the Societe Generale Bank of Nigeria (SGBN), when his late father, Senator Abubakar Olusola Saraki, left him in charge of the bank as Chief Executive. He is a medical doctor who wasted his years studying medicine and adding no value to human living in any way as a medical doctor. He surely can no longer practice as a medical doctor. He schooled for the name “doctor” to make his parents proud, it was not for the integrity of applying his knowledge to helping humanity: he loves the easy life. He chose banking and politics for reasons he knows best. Today, he boasts of nothing good than attempting to attain political rise through deceits and betrayals.
A man who betrayed his father and sent him to his grave. The father has never been humiliated in the politics of Kwara State until he allowed his son to disgrace him irredeemably because he died as a defeated politician, thanks to his son. So that is the man President Buhari tolerated as his senate president for 3 years, against taking charge to prevent that misfortune from happening. His leaving the All Progressive Congress (APC) is good riddance to bad rubbish. He is wished well in his political wanderings. It is prayed that he can handle Ezebuwon Nyesom Wike, a man who loves taking charge. He will get the Wike bite soon, as a sign of the fall he has fallen from political stardom. He does not yet know. Tinubu has hit him but Wike will nail the coffin for his burial from Nigerian politics. He is a space waster.
Bukola Saraki joined his father to raise the structure of the defunct All Peoples Party (APP) in Kwara State, and with that he joined the Obasanjo administration as a presidential aide under a “unity government”, which involved all major political parties in the first term administration of Olusegun Obasanjo. Before the end of that term, Bukola Saraki jumped ship to the Peoples Democratic Party shortly before the 2003 general elections, upon which platform he contested and won the governorship race for Kwara State. Was it that the APP was a bad party? No! It was for Bukola Saraki to ensure a smooth win in an Obasanjo monitored and moderated elections. President Buhari needs to learn a good lesson in monitoring and moderating elections. It is a precedence.
As a governor, he lobbied and got himself elected as the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum. He began the troubleshooting with President Jonathan, which Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi inherited and took to an anticlimax. Under the PDP, he won his first senatorial election to represent Kwara Central in 2011. He was Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment, until 2015 when he acted like James Bond to become senate president. He has been one of the problems of the Buhari administration. His recent defection to the PDP was the end of an era for him. He has been pushed out of the APC through the “fifth column” reconciliation job of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Who says the Asiwaju is not reconciling APC members? His job is an anti type.
Now, let Nigerians check out for Bukola Saraki and ask him why he claims to have followers all over the country but yet has been incapable of building a political platform for himself. Taking members of a political party along because he has means and wealth is opportunism. If Bukola Saraki claims to be a staunch political leader, let him form a political party like Asiwaju Tinubu does, and not to always desire to inherit the hard work of a better politician than him. Nigerians should discountenance all the lies he told in his defection speech. He can only deceive his caged political prisoners and those who wipe his political “ass”. He lied when he attempted to put the blame for his ousting from the APC on “fifth columnists”. He was talking about Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Should Bukola Saraki blame Tinubu for taking back what he suffered to build from being stolen? Does Bukola Saraki knows what it takes to build, nurture and sustain a political party to win elections? He is still unborn in that aspect of the political game. Buhari raised the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and won a State in 2011. Asiwaju Tinubu raised the Action Congress (AC) and kept Lagos State in 2003, and by 2010 when he upgraded his party to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), he won 5 States of this country at governorship level.
Is it not therefore interesting to note that when these 2 men came together in 2012, they, from the collection of 6 States from 2011, won 24 States of this country including the presidency. This was no mean feat. In all these, Bukola Saraki was just a member of the APC, at most, a financial contributor, but not the strategist for the party. Even in the PDP, he cannot join the strategic team. So it is clear that given Bukola Saraki’s despicable behavior on 9 June 2015, there was no way, given the opportunity as he now has, that Bola Tinubu could tolerate Bukola Saraki in the party he suffered to birth. Let Nigerians know that if the initially proposed tenure elongation of the APC had succeeded, rather than Bukola Saraki leaving the APC, it would have been Asiwaju Bola Tinubu that would have left the party. So Saraki should accept his loss in the APC game of wits, Tinubu is not his mate in politics.
For President Buhari, how just would it be for him to allow the ousting of Tinubu from the APC for tenants (Bukola Saraki and company) to take over the house he built? So Saraki’s frustration is understood. If he blames Tinubu for his present trouble, he should remember how he started the political battle with the political titan. Now he is shedding painful tears and attempting to wear The garb of a democrat. If Bukola Saraki is a democrat, he would not raise political thugs who are armed robbers to disrupt popular elections, arming them with weapons and vehicles with which they kill innocent Nigerians unprovoked. Bukola Saraki is a sad story, a bad spot in the Nigerian polity and political space. If there is a way, people like him should be ban from active politics. He need to give answers to Nigerians.
It is upon these facts that this response to his defection letter is released. He cannot talk about party leaders who sabotaged the dialogue organized to get him to stay his defection. He forgot how he refused to dialogue with his party leadership and went on to rob his party of the position of Deputy Senate President. That was anti party activity. He should have been dismissed from the APC since 9 June 2015 but John Oyegun was under the spell of the pecuniary. How about our annual national budgets, which his leadership drags into the mid year, clearly leading to the distortions in our expenditure framework for 3 years? He has now shown intent to sabotage the 2019 general elections, speaking in the tone of a saint and democrat: Bukola Saraki can fool some people sometime but he cannot fool all the people all the time.
Ini Akpan Morgan is the Convener of the APC Patriots Grouping (APCpg) in Akwa Ibom State and he writes from Uyo.
