And for Saraki, the game is over
Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki is perhaps, the biggest political casualty in the just concluded national elections in Nigeria. The Ilorinborn political maverick, tactician and strategist was caught unawares as nature and man conspired against him to clip his political wings.
Months to the elections, the odds were clearly against Saraki and his camp, but they all ignored the early signs of imminent defeat and moved on. No one had really anticipated that the same famous Saraki political dynasty that Bukola hijacked from his late father, Dr. Olusola Saraki, will ever crash and become history this soon.
Apparently, the name Saraki is synonymous with defeat as he serially kissed the dust in all the elections he participated and had serious stakes in, including losing his seat in the Senate.
The once powerful and mighty Saraki has fallen like packs of badly arranged cards. Truth is, Saraki’s fall has left many in shock, given his mastery of Nigeria’s brand of politics where the elite class decides who gets power, when and how.
That the crashing of the once rocksolid Saraki dynasty was orchestrated by the same Kwara people who installed it in the first place, is an indication that power truly belongs to the people. The stark reality that stares Bukola Saraki in the face right now is that, he’s been displaced and rendered worthless, politically, by the same people who made him a strong political force to reckon with.
Right from the outset, Saraki had always relied on others to achieve political fame. His late father’s link with Chief Obasanjo got him a job in Baba Iyabo’s cabinet in 1999. His father singlehandedly made him governor in Kwara state in 2003. Also, in 2015, he conspired with members of the opposition PDP against the plan of the ruling APC to emerge as President of the Senate.
2019 has brought Dr. Bukola Saraki’s almost two decades of political treachery and hanky panky to an abrupt end. For Saraki, it is a case of a notable political aficionado consumed by greed, treachery and excessive quest for power.
Having lost his Senatorial seat, and his anointed candidate for the guber election roundly defeated in all the 16 LGs in Kwara state, a feat never recorded in the history of elections in the state, Dr. Saraki has lost his political relevance and may have to watch political events from the sidelines, atleast for the next four years. Indeed, Otoe did the magic.
Abdullahi Yunusa, Abuja