News from Punch highlights that the Kwara State government has described the comments of former Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, regarding the outcome of the local government elections held on September 21, 2024, as "laughable and self-flattering."

The Kwara State Independent Electoral Commission (KWASIEC) declared the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates as winners of the chairmanship in all 16 local government areas and councillorship seats across the 193 wards.

Saraki, dissatisfied with the results, issued a statement through his Press Officer on Political Matters, Abdulganiyu Abdulqadir, alleging that the state government and KWASIEC announced different results from what was obtained at polling units across the state. However, Saraki lauded the people of Kwara for rising above partisan politics to oppose bad governance.

“In a manner that went beyond partisan consideration and gave expression to the protection of community interests, people from Kwara mobilised themselves to the polling units and met the absence of electoral officials and shoddy preparations by the electoral body.

“Yet the people stood firm against the deliberately concocted frustrations. In some areas, the votes were heavily stacked against APC candidates.

“In other areas, the voters stood against a system in which less than 10 per cent of the ballot papers were supplied to polling units for the huge number of accredited voters, with no result sheets supplied, amongst other inadequacies.

“Whatever results the electoral body eventually declared, our people have sent a clear signal to a government that has not made any significant, positive impact on their lives after 64 months in office.

“It is a shame that the 16 local government areas now have chairmen and councillors who would be in office without legitimacy and people's mandate,” Saraki said.

The former Senate president said by their action, the people of the state had shown that democracy was about the people and that any government that refused to serve the purpose for which it was elected would be voted out.

“The people of Kwara State deserve to be praised for demonstrating how politically savvy, sophisticated, and discerning they are.

“A government that continuously takes the people for granted will get its deserved result at the polls.

“I join numerous Kwarans to thank and commend the various political parties, community development associations, youth groups, religious bodies, and others who form the core of the democratic action we witnessed on Saturday. May God bless you all,” he said.

The former governor of Kwara State said the Peoples Democratic Party fielded candidates who were popular in their respective communities and acceptable to the people.

“The good people of Kwara State spoke loud and clear last Saturday. Those who can listen heard them too.

“Once again, the people deserve our commendation and a big pat on the back. They demonstrated character, courage, clarity of vision, and conviction. It is yet a new dawn in Kwara State,” Saraki concluded.

Reacting, the Commissioner for Communications, Mrs Bolanle Olukoju, said: “Saraki's PDP not only fruitlessly tried to frustrate the conduct of the election through the court, but mobilised urchins and its local collaborators to disrupt the balloting with their shenanigans and hooliganism, after seeing that they lacked the credibility or a record of convincing people to vote for them.”

The statement read, “It took the popular will of the people to cast their ballot. The government has done well enough to win the trust of the people, and that was what played out, regardless of the noise from Saraki's men.

“It is bewildering that Saraki's party is confused between floating the narrative that no election took place and claiming a victory from an election it said was never held. That is the lot of confused, desperate people that Senator Saraki leads.”

It wondered if Saraki could talk about people's welfare, given his administration's record of enslaving the people of the state.

“We also find it incredible that Senator Bukola Saraki was talking about people's welfare. The record of his iron-fist imperialism, which featured non-payment of salary, use of thugs to intimidate people, and high rate of suicides and destitution and other menaces faced by workers is still fresh.

“In 2016 when things were so tough and various categories of workers were not being paid, Kwarans remembered how Saraki was fighting to buy exotic cars while public funds were also being used to transport people to show solidarity for him in the dock.

“The same Senator Saraki is notorious for his conversion of public properties for personal use, even as the government he inspired was not paying workers while all their appointees were getting 100 per cent salaries and other perks of office.

“The government that he struggles so hard to bad-mouth has cleared the years of salary arrears that his lackeys left unpaid.

“As far as people's welfare is concerned, Saraki lacks the moral standing to talk. He is a bald hairdresser recommending his unfailing hair restorer. He is a snail claiming a championship in a community of horned animals,” the statement noted.

The government said the situation in the country was due to the serious economic challenges worldwide, adding that as evident in its many programmes, it had continued to execute infrastructural projects and social protection programmes to help the people.

“The government is also not denying people their wages while its appointees enjoy the perks of office as the Saraki-inspired government did.

“We urge Senator Saraki to reflect on his legacies of impoverishing people and organising questionable philanthropic feasts to throw morsels at the same people during which hundreds died,” the statement further said.