Date: 2019-01-25

...He is a joker - Saraki All Progressives Congress, APC candidate in Kwara Central Senatorial District, Dr. Ibrahim Oloriegbe has predicted what he on Thursday said is the end of the Saraki political dynasty with he boasted with his defeat of Senate President Bukola Saraki in the forthcoming election.

Senator Saraki was quick to dismiss Oloriegbe as a seasonal politician who he said does not pose any threat to his political ascendancy.

Speaking at a press conference in Lagos on Thursday, Dr. Oloreigbe said the people of Kwara were tired of Senator Saraki and his hold over the state.

He said: "In the past 16 years, our society has been in the grip of people who do not share our common values and heritage. They are dealers whose concerns are at variance with the people's aspirations. They are leaders with inordinate appetite for wealth acquisition.

"They are political voyagers and power merchants. They don't share our Islamic values and culture of leadership," he said.

Noting the situation on ground, he continued "our communities and indeed, Kwara State have been poorly represented at the federal level; poor representation and advocacy has deprived us of legitimate human, fiscal, economic and developmental entitlements.

Oloriegbe who expressed confidence that he would defeat Senator Saraki in the Senate election said that the APC was fully united with even Senator Gbemisola Saraki, a sister of Bukola Saraki supporting his aspiration.

He cited what he described as the poor living condition of the people of the district among other factors he claimed would propel him to victory.

Reacting to his assertion yesterday, Senator Saraki through his spokesman, Yusuph Olaniyonu dismissed the APC candidate as a joker who he claimed addressed the press to cause a distraction for Senator Saraki's leadership of the PDP campaign to unseat the APC federal administration.

"Dr. Ibrahim Oloriegbe is not a candidate in the senatorial election. Rather, he is the candidate of a faction in the APC, the Bolarinwa faction, which the court, in a subsisting and unchallenged judgement, rejected and rather recognised the Balogun-Fulani faction.

"Oloriegbe belongs to a group of people known in Kwara State as 'seasonal or visiting' politicians. The people do not see them. They don't relate with the people. They don't help the people and their community untill six months to election when they move in noxious money and they start printing posters.

"They have done this every election period. His present noise as well as that of Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq, Lai Mohammed and the rest is not different from what they have been doing since 2003. The result will also not be different."

He added: "If he, like others, has the sole agenda to destroy that dynasty without promising the people any dvelopmental agenda, then, he has failed. He never promised the people anytning good or developmental in nature. They only target Saraki. That 'bring him down' syndrome, empty envy, petty jealous are unislamic and contradictory to the true values of an Ilorin man."