By Segun Adegbite
When Senator Bukola Saraki on June 9, 2015, emerged as the Senate President of the 8th Senate through an unholy alliance with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Senators by conceding the slots of Deputy Senate Presidency to the main opposition party. It was not a surprised to many politicians considering how the former governor of Kwara state outsmarted his late Dad, Chief Olusola Saraki, to install current Governor of State of Harmony, Ahmed Fatai.
The ruling Party, All Progressive Congress (APC), was bitter with the political game Saraki played to get the Senate Presidency. The party led by Chief Oyegun in a spirited effort to allow peace to reign in the party mandated Saraki to announce Senator Ahmad Lawan as a Senate leader, a request which the Senate President turned down strategically.
But, in what some people seen as witchunting , the Senate President was accused of false asset declaration, an allegation which landed Saraki in the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) with 16 count charges.
However, the Senate President in his response to the charges described the charges slammed on him by the Code of Conduct Bureau as false and frivolous.
Saraki, said the charges were calculated to rubbish him and that he was ready to meet the Code of Conduct Bureau in court to assert his innocence.
“We therefore conclude that this is not an anti corruption driven case and cannot be part of the moves aimed at fighting corruption,” the senate president said. “It is simply a pure malicious and politically motivated prosecution aimed at undermining the person and office of the Senate President.
But, after a long legal battle which lasted for three years, the Supreme Court cleared Saraki of false Asest Declaration.
While Saraki trial was still going at CCT, the Senate President was allegedly undermining the Presidency with the series of running battle with Executive.
Presidency accused Saraki of deliberate delay of the passage of both the 2016, 2017 and 2018 budgets and Budget padding and inserting 391 projects into budget of only two agencies, refusal to confirm Ibrahim Magu as the substantive Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), giving preference to PDP members in committee appointments in the Senate , delay in the confirmation of the boards for AMCON, CBN, NERC, NSADA, ICPC, among others and many more confrontations with Executive through his foot soldiers in PDP and right hand man Senator Dino Melaye.
Saraki used Melaye consistently in the Chamber to deal with Senators perceived to be loyal to the Presidency as Senator Mohammed Ndume, Senator Ovie Omo- Agege had their fair share in the ’emprormic’ leadership of Saraki in the Senate.
Considering his body language , Saraki was accused of nursing Presidential ambition in 2019 by the loyalists of President Muhammadu Buhari, but the Wazirin Gerin of Ilorin Emirate in his maradonic style debunked nursing any Presidential ambition.
CCT trial was yet to be concluded ,on 5th April, 2018, tragedy struck in Offa, one of the three major commercial communities in Kwara State.
Some dare-devil armed robbers invaded the town, killed nine policemen and about 21 civilians and went away with undisclosed amount of money. It was bloody and caught the attention of the global audience. Saraki went to commiserate with the community and facilitated the deployment of armoured personnel carrier to restore confidence.
But two months after, the police came out with a bombshell: some of the suspects arrested over the robbery claimed they were political thugs working for the Senate President. One of them, Ayodele Akinnibosun aka AY, told newsmen this much when he said: “I am the chairman of Liberation Youths Movement in Kwara South. I work for the Senate President and Governor Ahmed as political mobilising youth and we have been working for long time since he was governor. “We mobilise and do political arrangement for him in Kwara south. Where we can’t win, we make arrangement there; we scatter elections if we don’t win.”
However, Saraki asked the Nigerian public to disregard the “baseless allegation” and ploy by the police to implicate him by all means, insisting consistently that the police was on a revenge mission following the running battle between the Senate and the IGP. “When the Offa robbery incident happened, I was the first top public official to pay a visit to the place and right there in the palace of the traditional ruler, I put a call through to this same Mr. Ibrahim Idris, the IGP, requesting him to make certain specific security arrangements as demanded by the people.
“Members of the public will remember that on May 16, 2018, I alerted the Senate about the information passed on to me by my State Governor, Dr. Abdulfatai Ahmed, over a ploy by the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Idris, to frame me up by getting some suspected cultists arrested in Ilorin to implicate me. It is believed that the timely leakage of the plot in that case aborted the use of the suspected cultists to implicate me. Now, it is the Offa bank robbery suspects that are about to be used. “This plot is concocted to embarrass me and, in the mind of the IGP, it is his own response after his refusal to honour the invitation by the National Assembly, headed me, for him to come and offer explanations on the rampant killings and violence across the country. “Like the earlier one, this frameup will also fail as I hereby state categorically that I have no link with any band of criminals. “It is however sad that this abuse of the criminal investigation process aimed at intimidating and over-overawing the legislature, thereby obstructing it from doing its work, is a big threat to our democracy”.
The allegation against Offa Robbery incident prepared ground for Saraki to dump the ruling party back to PDP where he started his political career first as Special Assistant to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in1999 and later won election as a governor ofhis home state in the party that ruled the country for 16 years.
Saraki who declared his intention to run for President on Thursday is believed to be in total grip of Kwara politics. But does Saraki has political influence beyond Kwara state if he eventually get the nod of PDP to run against President Buhari? .
Waziri Gerin of Ilorin Emirate like late “Oloye” is seen by some as Professional Presidential aspirant. While Senior Saraki was alive, he always declared interest to run for President, but he will later endorsed another aspirant.
Buky as always been called by his admire has been declaring his intention to run for President since 2011, but never participated in the Primaries election .Saraki decision to quit at the middle of the presidential race is as a result of Geographical disadvantage.
