My late uncle, Pa David Akano, was a very successful businessman based in Zaria. He was into bakery and his products labeled Freedom Bread with a catch-phrase “Hygienically Kneaded” were a must eat in Zaria and beyond. Virtually all the post primary institutions with boarding facilities in the ancient city subscribed to his bakery.

Pa Akano lived in Zaria for close to four decades. When I called to inform him that I was leaving the services of the Nigeria Standard Group of Newspapers after helping to nurture the Jos-based outfit to a sweet 16, he sought to know my reasons for throwing in the pen. I told him that all the pioneer staff had left and that some of the chaps that joined the outfit as my juniors were rising above me for obvious reasons.

My uncle knew I had served the media outfit meritoriously and became the first and the last non-Plateau man to edit the two major publications – The Nigeria Standard and the Sunday Standard at various times between 1984 and 1986. We both recalled how I lost the opportunity to join the Herald Newspaper in 1984. He had encouraged me to respond to the advertisement for the post of general manager. But the letter of invitation to attend the interview which was couriered to me arrived late on a Friday and I had to be in Ilorin the next day. A hotel accommodation had been arranged for me at the Kwara Hotel. There was no way I could honour the invitation except by travelling all through the night which was ill-advised. Besides, I had no capable hand I could hand over my paper to and Saturdays were the production days for the Sunday publication I was editing.

At the end of our discussion, my uncle agreed with me and underpinned his nod with a saying that after genuflecting to the father and you find yourself having to genuflect to the son, then it is time for you to step aside. My uncle was to demonstrate this principle about a decade later when his bosom friend and district head of Sabon Gari, Zaria, passed on and was succeeded by one of his sons. Although the district head and my uncle were contemporaries, he had to accord him the respect his position demanded. Pa Akano was generous to his friend and from time to time, his sons would pop up at the bakery to collect some freshly baked loaves of bread for the large household.

One of the district head’s sons succeeded his father. One evening, my uncle went over to felicitate with him and got the shock of his life. The young man, who used to address my uncle as daddy whenever they came for bread, decided to address him by his first name, David. It immediately dawned on him that the time had come for him to step aside. He eventually did and relocated to his hometown, Offa, Kwara state, where the paramount ruler, the late Oloffa of Offa, Oba Olanipekun Olawore, was his close buddy. The duo had lived in Zaria where Alhaji Olawore was a distributor with the Nigerian Tobacco Company (NTC) in Zaria before he was made the ruler of Offa people.

Kwara state was one of the 12 states created in 1967 when the four regions were balkanized but was first known as West Central state. An offshoot of the defunct Northern Nigeria, the state, before it lost the old Kabba Province to the present Kogi state, boasted of some of the best brains in the region. Icons like Sunday Awoniyi, Silas Daniyan, AGF Rasaq, Alfa Modibbo Belgore, J. S. Olawoyin, J.K. Aderibigbe, M. O. Shona, J. D. Abejide, F.O. Obayan and Rasak Aremu were some of the leading lights in the post-Independence Northern Region.
The voyage into servitude began for the Kwarans in the Second Republic when Dr. Abubakar Olusola Saraki emerged as the godfather of Kwara politics.

Even as a senator in the emerging political dispensation, Saraki had the clout and financial muscle to single-handedly install a governor. His first experiment paid off when he secured the guber seat for Alhaji Adamu Attah (1979 – 1983) on the platform of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). He fell out with Adamu before the end of his first term. However, the pendulum swung in favour of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and that saw the emergence of Cornelius Adebayo as governor but his reign was cut short by a military coup led by Gen. Buhari barely three months after taking over power.

When politics returned in 1991, the strongman of Kwara politics found a partnership in Mohammed Shaba Lafiagi and made him governor between 1991 and 1993. After the military interregnum (1993 – 1999), he returned to the trenches and produced Mohammed Lawal under the platform of All-Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). By the time Lawal completed his first term (1999 –2003), he had fallen out of favour with the kingmaker.

Pissed off by the terrible habit of biting the fingers that fed the likes of Adamu Attah and Mohammed Lawal, the godfather saw no need to look beyond his nose to pick someone with faithful teeth. His own biological son, Bukola, had come of political age. Besides, there could be no better time to start grooming a successor to the powerful dynasty he had built over time. Ironically, the godfather had his fingers also bitten by his son. This he did by revolting against him. He wanted the guber seat to be occupied by another member of the dynasty, Senator Gbemisola Saraki, who is Bukola’s half sister. Bukola was too smart for that. He chose a successor he could pocket.

The dynasty head thought he could teach his son some bitter lessons learnt by Attah and Lawal. He got Gbemisola to challenge her brother’s choice, Abdulfatah Ahmed, and floated a party – Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) – for her to execute his agenda. Despite battling with a terminal ailment, he managed to ferry her across the length and breadth of the state. But she was unsellable. To worsen matters, Oloye Saraki had lost much of his clout and relevance to his stupendously wealthy, more powerful and vibrant son. His primary constituency which was the older generation, held captive by his politics of N50 played at the “Great Hall” in Ilorin, had become too effeminate to impact on the political scene.

Today, there is nothing great about the “Great Hall” which has become the epicentre of the recurring earthquake that consumes impoverished Kwarans who troop there during Sallah celebrations to collect peanuts that trickle down from the stolen billions. The last disaster claimed the lives of scores of destitute Kwarans who trampled upon themselves while struggling to collect handouts during this year’s Eid-el-Kabir celebration.

By 2011 when Bukola completed his second term, a feat no one before him could achieve, he had amassed enormous wealth to secure the dynasty. And with a monthly pension of N100m he schemed for himself when he was in power and the right to “preside” over the monthly revenue accruing to the state, the hegemon has got what it takes to hold the state in perpetual servitude. The mockery in some quarters is the reference to the state as Kwaraki.
My uncle must be quaking in his grave, seeing how we have genuflected to Saraki the father and now to Bukola the son. The enigma now facing us all as Kwarans is how to free ourselves from this slavery. Do we all step aside for the dynasty as my uncle did in Zaria? That is impossible! May be some day, another party will emerge to yank state power from the chief hegemon. Or the puppet at the helm of affairs would revolt against the puppeteer after securing a second and final term as it is sometimes the case with most political godsons.