By Igbotako Nowinta
In the political jungle of Nigeria, Senator Bukola Saraki, like what many ideological empty and conscienceless politicians used to do, braking promises blatantly is a norm, but in his own unique case, he has put his fingers into the buttocks of a tortoise, landing him in trouble. Today, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is after him. Agreed that he is being singled out for political humiliation and destruction by the Muhammadu Buhari led All Progressives Congress (APC) government, but what does one expect from such an unstable character, given his celebrated ‘sins’ against the very platform that elevated him to political reckoning in 2015. Some opposition forces are saying that Senator Saraki represents the independence of the Legislature, how does one place a man that utilized a political ladder to the tilt and ended up throwing the very ladder carelessly back to those that constructed it and expect to have peace?
By the time the huge doors to the red Chambers of the ninth (9) Senate will be flung open on June 11, 2019, for senators to commence legislative business for the next four years, one towering but controversial personality will be conspicuously absent. It is Senator (Dr.) Bukola Saraki.
The out-gone Senate President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria could be described as a lucky person to have survived up till the time he took a bow because of what befell other past Senate presidents before him.
Senator Saraki was fortunate indeed that he was not thrown out of the Senate like late Senator Chuba Okadigbo, the loquacious, highly cerebral and incredibly flamboyant politician that was booted out via ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s gun boat assault.
Late Senator Evans Emweren could not survive the storm that became constant in the red chambers during his Senate Presidency, as he was bundled equally out of office via impeachment plot.
For the above reasons, l consider Bukola Saraki as a perfect political cat with many lives because he is still in contention in the Senate, mostly because in his time as senate president he was confronted by a sitting President in Muhammadu Buhari who decided never to commit ‘Ghana must go bags’ and unorthodox political ruthlessness to ‘fire off’ his supposed political enemy.
Could Saraki have survived under a fiery and absolutely combative character like ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo? I hope Nigerians have not forgotten the ‘l de kampe’ posture exhibited, nurtured and perfected by the former president.
How Senator Bukola Saraki made himself an avowed political foe of President Muhammadu Buhari and that of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Nigeria, before he was ruthlessly cornered by rivals who cleverly disfigured, undermined and tore his political garment to pieces; messed up and rendered him naked in his political domain in Kwara State, during the just concluded 2019 general elections:
Senator Saraki succeeded beyond his wildest imaginations in making a huge political cake, ate it ravenously and in the process wanted to have the cake back as his own; his was a political blunder that was initiated in the cocoon of excessive greed, incurable selfishness and insatiable recklessness, that expectedly back fired mercilessly.
Saraki and his band of fare weather politicians dumped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) shortly before the 2015 general elections in Nigeria.
It is on record that he and other political faithful had used the PDP since 1999, to increase the sizes of their bulging pockets and decided to continue to run the crooked political show, when they collectively rallied within the system with other forces to generate the APC in 2015.
Bukola Saraki started digging his political grave unknowingly shortly before the inauguration of the eight National Assembly in 2015, when he decided to outsmart and ridicule the zoning formula of the APC regarding the formation of the principal officers of the upper legislative assembly.
Utterly disregarding APC, rubbishing its collective avowed agenda for the political management of the National Assembly, to stimulate and fulfil its campaign promises, Senator Bukola Saraki chose to follow his own premeditated selfish path of becoming the President of the Senate.
In the process of attaining the Senate Presidency, Saraki aligned with the opposition forces, hugged political treachery unblinkingly and stabbed remorselessly in the back, the personalities that ensured his reemergence as an elected Senator.
In the political jungle of Nigeria, Senator Bukola Saraki, like what many ideological empty and conscienceless politicians used to do, braking promises blatantly is a norm, but in his own unique case, he has put his fingers into the buttocks of a tortoise, landing him in trouble.
Today, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is after him. Agreed that he is being singled out for political humiliation and destruction by the Muhammadu Buhari led All Progressives Congress (APC) government, but what does one expect from such an unstable character, given his celebrated ‘sins’ against the very platform that elevated him to political reckoning in 2015.
Some opposition forces are saying that Senator Saraki represents the independence of the Legislature, how does one place a man that utilized a political ladder to the tilt and ended up throwing the very ladder carelessly back to those that constructed it and expect to have peace?
The fall of Senator Bukola Saraki is a study in political nemesis, of unbridled ambition carried beyond the limit of caution, of excessive selfishness that did not place his people in Kwara State in any priority in his heart.
A former two-time Governor of Kwara State, a former presidential aspirant under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), an established godfather, Saraki singlehandedly installed the outgone sitting Governor of Kwara State, Abdufattah Ahmed
If the former Senate President had treated his people well he would never have been disgraced and put in a political gutter during the last National Assembly election, along with his political godson, Governor Abdufattah Ahmed who lost his comeback bid.
Saraki’s fall is a lesson for other politicians in his category to know when to put a stop to inordinate ambition and parochial desires.
Nowinta wrote: Where We Are – a call for democratic revolution in Nigeria.
