The on-going Bukola Saraki power-grabbing saga has, quite unwittingly, given birth to all manners of tall tales which have now reached epidemic proportions. Rather comically, one of such tales is been peddled by the little known Timi Frank, Deputy Spokesperson of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Perhaps because many Kwarans were able to resist the natural urge to glorify Timi Frank with a response to an earlier article credited to him which was posted in some social media platforms, the hitherto obscure Timi Frank, in his usual desperation to please his paymasters, was seen on national TV only yesterday abusing the sensibilities of all right thinking Nigerian and lovers of decency. Indeed, with the obscenities Timi Frank mouthed on the political programme in references, he has stirred the hornet's nest. With his latest outburst, not a few Kwarans, nay Nigerians, will still be able to hold back the urge to respond to the relevance-seeking young man. As a matter of fact, the conclusion in most decent quarters in that Timi Frank is a young man who, to all intents and purposes, is misguided and needs to be put where he rightly belongs by way of confronting him with hard facts. No doubt, the need to tell Timi that the greatest control is self control now stares us all in our faces.

Why do I, as a Kwaran say this? It is enough to ask this question to know the answer. Because Senator Bukola Saraki, Timi Franks's newest paymaster, fails to realize that when a man is in a pit, he should stop digging, he (the outgoing Senate President) has induced Timi to continue his penchant for peddling patent falsehood. What remains unknown to the paymaster is that, by his own confession, Timi Frank is one of his greatest political enemy. Not on a few occasions has Timi proclaimed his disgust for Bukola Saraki's personality and his avarice. Timi has proclaimed this both publicly and in private. But, of course, for people of little scruples like Timi, the whiff of money can make them turn full circles in a jiffy. The question to ask, however is, how genuine is the sudden love he now professes for Saraki?

Knowing how unreliable Timi Frank is, I can safely say that all he said about his "undying love" for Saraki is a ruse. I know Timi's mental architecture. I know many of his naughty secrets. For instance, I know he did not even vote during the general elections of 2015 in his native Bayelsa State. He was one of the self-styled 'political heavyweights' who voted with their legs on the eve of the elections. I challenge him to prove me wrong on this with his record from INEC. In his reckoning, Nigeria was on the brink of collapse. Pray, should such a man benefit from a country he was quick to abandon at such a time when? Why the APC and the Buhari administration look Timi's way? Maybe, he thinks, the party leadership is unaware of his secret wish prior to the elections that the party he pretends to support should fail.

But even if the party was hitherto unaware of Timi's disdain for it, his latest unholy alliance with Bukola Saraki has exposed him. As Saraki is working tooth and nail to run the party aground, he has found a ready ally in Timi Frank. If ever there was any doubt about his in the past, it has been cleared. The reasoning in informed quarters now is that Bukola Saraki, and not former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, sponsored Timi into the over-sized shoes he presently adorns. I say this with very keen insight. I have listened to Timi bad-mouthing President Mohammadu Buhari many times before the election.

I will not concern myself with the upscale lifestyle Timi has acquired (rather suddenly) for himself both here and in Dubai. I am not concerned about how he got almost a billion Naira to buy the house where he lives. I know enough about Timi's trade to concern myself with these. We are aware of the funds that flew his way from some PDP Governors in the build up to the elections. We know about the role he played in the bid by some PDP Governors to scuttle the Ministerial nomination of Rotimi Ameachi, Heineken Lokpobiri and Babatunde Fowler's appointment among several others. We know about his trade of writing and acting scripts for the highest bidders. Why then must we ask questions as to his jaw-dropping wealth, even without any known antecedent?

Patriotism, however, will not allow me to close my ears to the pretentious support Timi has declared for Bukola Saraki. As a Kwaran, I am continually embittered by the state of absolute lack that my State has found itself, no thanks to Bukola's eight years misrule which was characterized by avarice, nepotism and favouritism. Surely, Timi cannot claim to be unaware of the several question marks that have been put to Bukola's transparency quotient by highly placed Kwarans over the years. Agreed that he (Timi) has no ability to handle hard facts (I say this with more sorrow than anger), but shouldn't he have just faced his boot-licking business instead of poking his nose into what clearly is beyond his comprehension?

How can one go over the details of the penury into which Bukola Saraki's misrule has thrown Kwara without sounding like a broken record? The gory details are already in public domain. To now realize that some of the proceeds from the numerous unpaid salaries and pensions, several grossly inflated and mainly unexecuted contracts are now been squandered by Timi Frank to launder Saraki's already battered image , for us in Kwara , amounts to an affront. The fact that the unholy duty is been carried out by a character like Frank makes it even more of an insult.

Barr. Sa'ad Ajani

Is a Kano-based Lawyer