Alhaji Raheem Adedoyin was a former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he served as Commissioner for Information during the tenure of former Governor Bukola Saraki. In a chat with journalists, the Special Adviser on Communication Strategy to Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed, speaks on how Dr Bukola Saraki has succeeded his father as the political leader of Kwara State. TUNDE OYEKOLA brings excerpts:

AS a former national officer of the PDP from Kwara State, are you in PDP or APC?
I have ‘ported’ to APC with our leaders. I was abroad when the governor and our leader, Senator Bukola Saraki announced their defection to the APC. But on the eve of my departure abroad, I had the privilege of getting firsthand information separately from the governor and the leader on the political direction they were going and the reasons. So, I am going to APC out of conviction, not on sentiment.

The leadership is just being pro-active, the contempt for the leadership in Kwara State had become so grave that the followership had become famished by PDP leadership’s antics and there was greater danger ahead. It was time to move but it was not a whimsical decision. It was a movement with the flock. I believe strongly in Senator Saraki’s leadership. I had cause to disagree politically with him in the past but he is a strong and focused leader and he has a formidable structure like no one else in Kwara State. Without doubt, I was emotionally attached to PDP and as an influential former national officer of PDP under whose watch a PDP government was installed in Kwara State in 2003, I would certainly have still been a major player in PDP. But financial or material considerations don’t influence my political judgments; I do what I believe in and what is in the best interest of our people. And what I believe in is that the Ahmed administration has done well in Kwara State and Senator Bukola Saraki is showing good political leadership. If I feel otherwise, trust me, I will say so. And of course, my community is with me on this. In my community, Ijomu Oro, the governor has completed a N213m road project, he is doing another N180m road project in the adjoining Okerimi Oro.

In  Irepodun Local Government, his key achievements include Landmark University road in Omuaran, rehabilitation and equipping of Omuaran General Hospital (N200m), completion of Oko/Odo-Ase road, the International Vocational Centre in Ajasse-Po (N2.4 billion), the Aranorin/Rore/Arandun road (N1.5 billion), among other projects. So for us, we have something tangible and visible to point to as the benefits of the Maigida administration and the leadership of Bukola Saraki. That is why when the old PDP structure in Irepodun paid the governor a solidarity visit on recently, all leaders from the wards and local government levels were present.

You kept calling Senator Saraki leader, do you feel he has inherited his father’s clout just yet?
He has earned the leadership. When the grand master, Dr. Abubakar Olusola Saraki (Oloye) was alive, not many people would call ABS leader. In fact, I recall that in September 2011, I drew his attention to this. But it wasn’t his making; I understood and appreciated later the circumstance that led people to be calling him leader then.

Specifically, after Oloye had left PDP for ACPN, there was a leadership vacuum in PDP and people needed a rallying figure as leader for the crucial 2011 election. Besides, some people meant it at that time to mean the Khalifah (successor). But since Baba’s exit, ABS has earned the leadership tag not because he is Oloye’s biological son but because truly no one has his political stature and status in Kwara presently. He has not only consolidated and expanded the late sage’s political structure; he has shown firm commitment to the development of Kwara, from Central to the North, to the South.

But some said that the state has finally witnessed the end of the Saraki dynasty.
Haba! Not at all. Even though every good thing has an end, the sun is not set or about to set yet for the Saraki dynasty. ABS has sustained the physical (political) structure, but the greater

sustenance of the dynasty lies in Oloye’s legacy of service to the people, which his political family has continued to uphold in Kwara State.

But some PDP chieftains from the state recently upbraided Senator Saraki and Governor Ahmed, playing down their influence. What’s your take on that?
They said they were celebrating the exit of Saraki from PDP. But that’s short-sighted; PDP never won any gubernatorial or national election in Kwara until Saraki brought in his celebrated election-winning machine. Anyway, even half of those who signed the advert were never PDP members. And not surprisingly, they don’t know the history of PDP in Kwara State. PDP never formed a government in Kwara State until Saraki came in and the credit for that goes partly to the younger Saraki, who encouraged the younger elements then in PDP especially Kwara South which was not Oloye’s stronghold, to integrate into Oloye’s structure to form a formidable platform. That fusion strengthened the capacity of Saraki’s election-winning machine. In any case, other than the acidic tone of the advertorial and the derogatory characterisation of the governor, I don’t see anything new said in their publication that the implacable Saraki-bashers had not said before. They will meet us in the field, it is a game of numbers, not a newspaper war.

You are from the same constituency as APC interim spokesman, Alhaji Lai Mohammed. How will you work together?
Alh. Lai Mohammed is my elder brother from the same Oro and I respect him. Despite our political differences in the past, we have maintained a very passionate brotherly relationship. In fact, you probably would have seen the ‘blood-is-thicker-than-politics’ photographs we took together and I published while I was in PDP and he was in ACN. I don’t allow politics to come into my relationship with my people.