Date: 2015-07-05

The most authoritative account of what transpired before the emergence of the incumbent President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, as governor of Kwara State was innocently made public by one of the leading politicians from the South Eastern zone of the country, Ben Odidi Obi, last week in an interview with a national newspaper. The revelation was like unmasking the true Saraki dynasty.

As expected, he disclosed that the late Oloye, Olusola Saraki was the brain behind the emergence of his son as governor. According to Obi, Bukola was actually reluctant and, he actually turned down his father’s desire for him. His father had to plead with Obi to speak to Bukola.

Indigenes of Kwara should be grateful to Obi for speaking up on this issue and for making their recent history clearer. Things happen in the life of a people without the people ever knowing what transpired until an occasion such as this presents itself. Ben Obi, a former Special Adviser to the President, former Senator and former Vice Presidential candidate of a political party did not set out to divulge secrets. His intension was to make public the stuff Bukola, the senate President was made of and why he believes that the APC cannot beat ‘his political sagacity.’

In year 2003, when Mohammed Lawal, the Governor of Kwara State between 1999 and 2003 caught the wrath of his political godfather, the Oloye himself, what the people of Kwara knew was that within the All Peoples Party (APP) to which Oloye and the governor belong, the duo had sharp disagreement. Oloye insisted that Lawal did not perform well as governor and he would have to go.

Lawal on the other hand maintained that he did his best to please Saraki but that he could not be appeased. It was Lawal who first told the people of Kwara that Oloye wanted to make his son, Bukola, governor of the state.

While Oloye Saraki did not deny or confirm the disclosure of Lawal, he later told political enthusiast that some Northern governors persuaded him to present his son. Bukola himself at a stage said Kwara indigenes such as the present spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Lai Mohammed was considered for the job but that he could not leave his party to contest on the ticket of the PDP. When the noise about Oloye installing his son as governor of Kwara became shrill, Oloye said he, at a stage, personally considered contesting for the position of Kwara governor.

Political watchers knew at the time that history was about to be made in Kwara politics. Saraki, who was the Turaki of Ilorin had for close to three decades installed and dethroned civilian governors and he was about to install his son as governor. Expectedly, the Oloye denied putting his son up for governor to satisfy his personal desire. Rather, he said he was pressurised by many prominent Nigerians to present him.

But Ben Obi, in the interview laid every fact that has to do with the emergence of Bukola as governor of Kwara State bare. Hear him: "Again, in 1998/1999, I was the foundation National Secretary of APP. In fact, I gave the name of that party on August 28, 1998 at the Sheraton Hotel, Abuja. Bukola’s late father, Dr Olusola Saraki, was one of the major financiers and leaders of the party.

He came on board with the likes of Admiral Lawal and Shaaba Lafiagi, who was a governor of Kwara State, and we had this problem of who would be the next governor of Kwara. Because Lafiagi had been governor of the state before, Bukola was sympathetic to him and I said to the leader, his father, that because Lafiagi was governor and he made mistakes, let him go back to remedy the situation as governor. Eventually, Bukola’s suggestion carried the day.

"In one discussion I had with the late Bukola’s father, he said he had spent his time and resources putting people in as governor of Kwara and that it was time he put his son. I agreed. He then told Bukola his decision and surprisingly the young man turned it down. Then the father called me and said, ‘Can you imagine that Bukola said he did not want to be governor?’ He asked me again to talk to him and, again, I went to the young man.

I asked him what the problem was and he said the problem was relocating to Ilorin. And I said he could turn Ilorin to one of the finest cities. I said even if he insisted on living in Lagos, he could work from Monday to Friday and then spend his weekends in Lagos. He agreed and I went to his father and told him that Bukola had agreed and he thanked me. That was how he went to be the governor of Kwara State."

Some facts were established in the above revelation: Shaaba Lafiaji, a former governor of the state was Bukola’s candidate for the job and he would have been candidate of the party but for the desire of Oloye Saraki. Secondly, Bukola did not want to relocate to Ilorin from Lagos which was why he turned down the suggestion from his father to be governor until Obi convinced him that he could transform Ilorin into one of the ‘finest cities’ and that he could always spend his weekends in Lagos after working from Monday to Friday. Thirdly, it was Oloye’s personal desire to install his son governor of the state after installing others for decades.

Obi said: "In one discussion I had with the late Bukola’s father, he said he had spent his time and resources putting people in as governor of Kwara and that it was time he put his son."

Saraki, like any other politician had at that stage asked himself what was coming to him as an individual by installing others as governor? On the other hand, his decision to ensure that other areas produced governors since the Second Republic was deliberate and it was for a purpose. When the Ebiras were part of Kwara State during the Second Republic, Saraki supported Adamu Attah.

He was succeeded by Cornelius Olatunji Adebayo from Igbomina, from Yoruba speaking area of the state and during Ibrahim Babangida’s aborted Third Republic; Saraki supported Shaaba Lafiaji from Tapa speaking area of the state. At the take off of the Fourth Republic, there was so much noise about Ilorin not producing governors and Oloye agreed to endorse Lawal.

Consequently, it can be deduced that Oloye Saraki stalled and no Ilorin indigene was governor until the take off of the fourth Republic because his son was not of age. As soon as Bukola attained the statutory age of 35 for governor, Oloye decided to make him governor.

But the ascendance of Bukola as governor of the state and his involvement in politics is more of a blessing to Kwara than a course. Bukola has impressed some leaders in Kwara with the approach he took on the deep resentment of a section of the state against the other. If he has not achieved 100% success in his bid to fully unite the people, it is because of the older generation still living in the past.

With time, Bukola will gain acceptance of the people. In 2006, as governor of the state, he visited the then minister for Works, Chief Cornelius Adebayo and his request at that short meeting was modest and impressive. The people of Kwara cannot continue to live in the past. That Bukola could stand up against his father’s wish that Rukiyat, his immediate younger sister should succeed him as governor also marked him out as a man of conscience who the people of Kwara should give their support.

A faction of the Afonja Descendant Union (ADU) has endorsed Saraki as senate president because they are proud that an indigene of the state attained that height in politics. Bukola is the only Kwara indigene to surpass the position his father who was senate leader during the Second Republic.