There is a dirty and shameful campaign going on in Kwara State involving a father, his son and his daughter that may very well represent the lowest point of indecency and bankruptcy of Nigerian politics. This campaign began when Dr. Abubakar Olusola Saraki, his son, the present Governor of Kwara State and his daughter, Senator Gbemisola- Fawora all decided that they will pursue their political ambitions, using Kwara state people’s love and loyalty to Dr Saraki as a springboard.
The problem is that all three, from the same family, are involved in contests that are to affect each other’s ambitions. Dr. Bukola Saraki is serving his second and last term as PDP Governor and wants to stand as Senator. He will therefore succeed his sister as Senator. His sister, who is a serving Senator wants to succeed him as Governor. Dr. Bukola Saraki thinks this will affect his chances of becoming Governor, particularly since he has already settled on a successor, and wants to continue to control Political affairs of the State. Their father, unable to settle this quarrel between a son who feels he has come of age, and is entitled to take over from his father as the godfather of Kwara politics, and an ambitious daughter who feels she is entitled to benefit from a legacy that makes every Saraki an automatic political winner, decided to pull out of the PDP and join an obscure little Party called Allied Congress Party of Nigeria. His daughter went with him to stand as its gubernatorial candidate. The father vowed to destroy the PDP which he helped build, because, as he alleged, some people have closed the doors to the Party in his face. Those people he refers to are his son, who then dug in and is actively campaigning for his Party, the PDP against his sister and her Party the ACPN. He is busy dismantling his father’s legacies in Kwara PDP and installing himself as its leader; while his father is working hard to show that he is still the godfather of Kwara politics, and can defeat his son and the PDP, as he did in 1999, and later turned around and defeated his former party, the ANPP in Kwara and Kogi states.
There is nothing new or strange in siblings, or even father and son taking opposing positions in politics, or even contesting against each other. But the allegation by Senator Gbemisola Saraki that the Kwara State chapter of the PDP is planning to circulate posters showing her in complete nudity is adding a new and despicable dimension to this sibling war. The ACPN alleges that the printing of the posters has already been contracted, and that they will be circulated in churches and mosques in Kwara state.
Perhaps as expected, the Kwara State PDP has dismissed the complains of Senator Gbemisola saraki as a wild allegation. The PDP says the allegation is the cry of a drowning politician seeking sympathy at all cost. It advised the Governor’s sister’s party to stop chasing shadows, because Kwarans are now wiser as the days of deceit are gone for good. The PDP said a lot more, but the essence of the response is to say that PDP will win the next elections in Kwara, and therefore defeat Senator Saraki, and her father, who is campaigning against her brother, and his own son.
By all standards of judgment, the politics in Kwara state has degenerated to a level of indecency not seen in this country. Many people will say that this degeneration is inevitable, given the pivotal role of Dr. Olusola Saraki in the politics of the State; a role so powerful that he could also single-handedly change its political coloration at will, and install his son as governor and daughter as Senator in the same elections. So powerful has Dr. Saraki become that even when serious cracks began to appear in his family due to the ambitions of his children, it appeared no one could help him sort it out. Religious leaders jumped into the fray, with many attempts to use her gender against the Senator. Governor Bukola Saraki also had to walk a tight rope between aligning with President Jonathan to save his political career, and offending the phenomenal power base of his father in Kwara State. In the end, it is now a battle between father and son, and the daughter and sister just appears as collateral damage. This is what happens when too much power is concentrated in one person or one family, and the lessons from Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and many other countries appear lost to the Saraki Family.
If Governor Bukola’s Party does succeed in defeating his father’s and sister’s party, it will be a sad end to the political career of Dr. Olusola saraki, a career that shows tremendous amounts of political dexterity and the fact that it is possible to generate genuine love of the people through generosity and affection for the ordinary people. Whoever wins, Bukola’s PDP or his father’s and sister’s ACPN, the family will be the loser, and in fact it has already lost considerable amount of respect, when it is alleged that a brother will be part of a plot to print and circulate his sister’s nude pictures to scuttle her political ambitions. Nigerians will ask; what is in public office that makes some Nigerians so desperate that they can sacrifice everything in its pursuit? Perhaps the best way of dealing with these types of desperate politicians is for decent Nigerians to abandon them altogether by voting for those who respect some boundaries for decency and decorum.
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