THIS week the Kwara State House of Assembly held a public sitting on a proposal to re-name the four-year old Kwara State University, after late Dr. Abubakar Olusola Saraki, the politician that bestrode the state's political terrain like a colossus for over three decades.

By the end, Saraki (father) literally willed the state, almost like a feudal fief, to son Bukola, former governor and now senator representing Kwara Central. The decision to re-name the university was proposed by the governing Council, headed by Muhammed Sha'aba Lafiagi, former governor and Senator, and long-term Saraki acolyte.

But in that matter, Bukola had cast a long shadow, because he has perfected the use of sidekicks to introduce laws meant to satisfy his personal preferences.  He did that when he rammed through the supine Kwara House of Assembly, a pension package just for his own creature comfort, at the end of his eight-year tenure as governor.

The controversy generated by the re-naming proposal had been muted (because of the prevailing atmosphere of oppressive silence and fear in Kwara!), but it came to the fore at the public sitting in Ilorin.

Leading lights of the political opposition in Kwara, like Iyiola Oyedepo (himself a former legislator and lawyer) and state chairman of the CPC, Alhaji Suleiman Buhari, argued against the university re-naming.

Oyedepo for instance reminded that: "truly, the late Waziri was elected a senator and a senate leader from 1979-83, what landmark development did his leadership at the Senate bring to the state for that period?" From a neutral perspective, let me remind that the late Saraki gave significantly to educational causes around the state over the years of his hegemonic control; but can that be enough reason to name the state university after him?

Besides and unfortunately, those defending the name change did not even posit an edified line to defend their decision. The Tertiary Education Commissioner, Muhammed Lade, canvassed an argument that affronts the human dignityof Kwarans: "if it is possible to rename Kwara state as Olusola Saraki State, I think Baba Saraki deserves it.

All of us sitting here today and those of us not here, Baba has contributed one way or the other to what we are today (SIC)". These are thoughts befitting of a modern slave not a decent, self-respecting citizen!

In truth, there is a frightening Saraki personality cult, but an even more virulent variant has been deliberately constructed around Bukola Saraki, since his father's death.

Those who claim him as "leader" have become a mob running riot against whoever disagrees with their "sovereign". None could dare to think that in eight years of power, Bukola made good in Kwara.

It would have been an expression of gratitude to plough some of his stupendous wealth back to our community by building a private university, named after his father, Dr. Abubakar Olusola Saraki. However, in Bukola's political nether world, the state must continue to give him and the university name change decision is merely another piece in the jigsaw of political conquest of Kwara by this overly ambitious young man.

The likely scenario is that the "Sarakite" mob will achieve the university re-naming, because Bukola must get whatever he desires from Kwara. That is the written and unwritten rule! But the future is also not too far away, because a re-naming can also be reversed, when freedom finally spreads its wings like a bird over Kwara state!

There has also opened a new front of conflict within the politics of Kwara state as presented in the undeclared war between Bukola Saraki and Prof. Oba Abdulrahim, Chairman of the Federal Character Commission. When Abdulrahim's tenure came up for renewal, Bukola opposed it, as always, never wanting a citizen of the state, but especially an Ilorin indigene, to be in a prominent position for long. However, a new calculus entered the political equation.

The presidency has become completely exasperated with Bukola's undisguised opposition. His preferred candidate, former Senator Ahmed Muhammed was rejected and Prof. Oba was re-apointed, to Bukola's chagrin. He then mobilised the PDP machinery in the state to protest Oba's re-appointment and he is poised to ambush Prof.Abdulrahim's clearance in Senate.

But the presidency is also taking the battle to Bukola, with rumoured plans to seize the Kwara PDP machinery from him, while they also want to knock him off the perch of his controversial senate seat. There is disquiet in Bukola Saraki's camp, even as his sidekicks continue releasing abusive texts and tendentious articles against Professor Oba.

But the most difficult problem that Bukola faces today is the deep anger of the Ilorin elite, organised in the Ilorin Emirate Descendants' Progressive Union (IEDPU). Bukola had enacted very unpopular land laws, which alienated the rights of Ilorin people from their ancestral land. Not brought up in Ilorin, and never identifying with the community's history and aspirations, Bukola imposed a blatantly capitalist regime on land, which the people resent and the anger has threatened to boil over, in the past two years.

Things were not helped when he allegedly challenged IEDPU to square up with him on the field if it was contemplating entering politics, during an Umrah pilgrimage. IEDPU's anger mirrors the increasing frustration of people in Kwara with the arrogance of this young man who deludes himself as "leader".

The build up of forces, local and national, is increasingly threatening to demystify Bukola Saraki. No longer able to strut the national space as he did under Umaru Yar'adua, when he and his partner, James Ibori, literally ruled the roost, the space of his suzerainty has narrowed to his hegemonic bear-hug on Kwara state. But people are becoming more conscious and the politics of manipulation of poverty to retain control, long his dynasty's preferred style, is dissembling.

Our pretentious emperor is being found out to be naked! Bukola Saraki has a loyal mob around him that continues to shout to the roof top that he is "leader" and they are willing to forcefully coral others to join their hysteria, but deep down, the young man knows that he faces the political battle of his life in the coming months and years.

So when all is said and done, Bukola Saraki should take of his stupendous riches, show gratitude to a state he has taken so much from (and continues to take, with the juicy pension package), to build a private university, then express a son's love for his father, by naming the university after the late Dr. Olusola Saraki; they should leave the state-owned university alone.