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| Senate President, Bukola Saraki |
The travails of the Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola
Saraki in the highly publicised saga with the Code of Conduct Tribunal over an
alleged false declaration of assets could be seen from a movie perspective. It
could be safely referred to as a film project produced by President Muhammadu
Buhari, covertly directed by the former governor of Lagos state in the person
of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu with the embattled Saraki as the main actor
getting all the unprecedented attention.
The 'scenes' of Saraki's trial before the Code of Conduct
Tribunal depicts the high level of conspiracy and witch-hunt in the All
Progressives Congress which is being adored as the agent of change in Nigeria.
This only confirms my previous claims that politics in Nigeria remains the same
but only the formation changes to beat the intelligence of the masses. These
people control what we know, it’s a make-believe system with the back stage
clips limited to powerful eyes. One day, Nigerians will wake up to the bitter
truth that Buhari is the only 'Change' in APC while the other members could be
referred to as a continuation of the 16-years modern slavery in the hands of
the People's Democratic Party, PDP. Buhari publicly declared his assets which
is an impression of his level of integrity. His fellow APC counterparts have
strongly refused to follow suit and just a private disclosure before the Code
of Conduct Tribunal according to the dictates of the 1999 constitution caused a
‘Saraki’ to slip in shame. This speaks volume of the staggering records of
enormous wealth they have amassed over the years at the expense of the 170
million Nigerians and their undying passion to loot more in years to come.
We have all heard of Alhaji Ibrahim Coomasie former Inspector
General of Police, IGP's 22-year old son, Ibrahim Coomasie Sarki from Daura,
Katsina state whose father served under the late General Sani Abacha regime, flaunting
his father's wealth on Instagram and ordering for the latest cars online. He is
so known that car companies reply his Tweets on the social media. But what is
his source of income? His father is retired and he is only a student. This is a
question you may ask today and you may not live or publicly appear to ask the
next. This is the life our greedy politicians want for their generations to
come while an average Nigerian at the age of 36 celebrates buying a new
Tricycle, 'Keke Napep' in the church or even buying a fairly used car of 1999
model in 2015 with the congregation shouting in celebration.
Back to my initial claim of Buhari producing a movie that
showcases Saraki's stellar dance of shame, there has been strong rumours of a
cold war between Buhari and Saraki over the alleged 'democratic coup' that saw
Saraki emerge as the Senate President in which he liaised with members of the
PDP, undermining the bad blood between both parties to achieve his undying
ambition. The dramatic advantage Saraki took to secure his candidature in the
absence of 51 APC senators waiting for a meeting with the president at the International
Conference Centre in Abuja shows the fierce desperation in Saraki for power. This
affirms the length Saraki could go to achieve his aims regardless of the
limitations on ground. This is dangerous for APC as the same Saraki nurses a
presidential ambition after publicly confessing he stepped down for Buhari at
the 2015 presidential elections. All efforts by Saraki and his cohorts to seek
Buhari's pardon failed as the president watched Saraki from a distance with
adequate caution.
Saraki's emergence was a dirty slap on the face of Tinubu who
got bored with his hold on the commercial capital of Nigeria, Lagos state for
over 16 years and decided to move his ministry to the permanent site, by
controlling power at the national level. Tinubu's candidates were Senator
George Akume as the Senate President and then Femi Gbajabiamila as the Speaker
of the House of Representatives. He gathered the support of eminent
personalities within the APC and it was almost obvious that his wishes were
coming to reality before events played south.
Saraki's emergence as the Senate President of the 8th
National Assembly shook the foundation of APC and exposed the selfish interests
of the party leadership all concealed with the slogan of 'Change' which also
means the money collected after making a purchase. The leadership of the APC
swiftly moved to quell the brewing crisis and urged the aggrieved parties to sheath
their swords but Tinubu being an old cat in politics patiently waited for
Saraki on his way home to prove to him that his 11 years ahead of Saraki in
terms of age is invaluable.
Saraki was caught off guard in the web of a false declaration
of assets with the ever passive Code of Conduct Tribunal waking up from its
slumber of ages to assume the role of a criminal court to nail the unsuspecting
third man in the political hierarchy of the Nigerian system. Saraki and his
supporters have openly termed the 13-count charged slammed on him as an act of 'political
lynching' by some powerful Nigerians who are against him for being the Senate
President. Who are these faceless but highly powerful elements? Names may not
be mentioned in print but going down the dramatic events of the race for Senate
Presidency, Tinubu will be fingered.
63-Year old Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a perfect movie director who
specialises in producing political contents. It would be recalled that the role
of a director is never noticed in a movie except out of curiosity by the
audience. The actors take the credit as the producers and directors fade into
the background. This is a vivid analogy of the mode of operation of Tinubu. Let's
take a clue from the way he 'scolded' the immediate past governor of Lagos state,
Babatunde Raji Fashola for reasons not confirmed. Before the rift between
Tinubu and Fashola, the latter was seen as a budding messiah in Nigerian
politics making reference to his immense contributions to the development of
Lagos state. Nobody knew he spent a whooping sum of N78 million on his personal
website that could have freely being a blog and then another N139 million on
sinking boreholes to produce 'crude oil' in Lagos.
The shots were fired at Fashola by a faceless shooter. Even
when Tinubu wanted to use the PDP chapter of Lagos state as a shield to conceal
his identity, it all came back to him. Tinubu is a specialist when it comes to
directing of real occurrences from the background and letting others take the
credit and hurt while he goes clean.
Tinubu initially set Ibrahim Lamorde, the Acting Chairman of
the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC against Toyin Saraki, the
wife of the Senate President over cases of corruption traceable to her husband.
It was a ploy to beat the firewall of Saraki through a weaker window. Saraki
swiftly made a counter-attack that broke the camel's back by inviting George
Oboh, the Chief Executive Officer of Panic Alert Security Services, PASS to
expose the unremitted N1 trillion recovered from corrupt public office holders
which were heartlessly embezzled by Lamorde and other faceless officials. This
incapacitated Lamorde and caused a perpetual setback in the trial of Toyin
Saraki.
Tinubu laid doggo till the 'dirty' Saraki with so many
loopholes on his stint walked into his trap with a false declaration of assets.
Saraki's failure to show up at the tribunal and also his action of seeking
orders from higher courts to stall the proceedings gave Nigerians the
perception that he may not be actually guilty, but he may be hiding a human
head in the refrigerator of his inner chambers. The drama was protracted that
Justice Umar Danladi of the CCT was forced to issue a bench arrest warrant against
a high profile man like the Senate President in Nigeria. It would have been
more shameful with the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase storming
Saraki's abode to handcuff him.
Saraki may survive the storm with 82 senators (initially 84)
out of the 109 senators in the National Assembly passing a Vote of Confidence
on him, but seeing a Saraki stretching his neck and looking out of the dock as
an accused is an epic dance of shame that will manifest when he wakes up his
presidential ambition in 2019 as expected. It is rumoured that his ambition was
the sole reason why he visited Maiduguri some months back to pacify the
Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs at their various camps.
With the camera focused on Saraki and the keen eyes of the
audience being the Nigerian masses watching him wash his dirty linens outside
on the order of Tinubu, there are strong lessons to learn. The stoning of
Saraki at the Eid praying ground on Sallah day in Ilorin, Kwara state shows the
preconceived view of the masses about him even though he hasn't been proven
guilty by the CCT. The Nation newspapers being the first mainstream news
platform to publish the 'stoning of the devil' like the Hajj scenario speaks
volume of how strong their boss Tinubu wanted Saraki's shame publicised to dent
the morale of him and that of his loyalists.
If the report that the prosecutor of Saraki at the tribunal,
Rotimi Jacobs (SAN) had his evidences provided by the executive governor of
Kaduna state, Mallam Nasir El Rufai by virtue of his access to information as
the former FCT minister in 2007 is to go by, it’s safe to say, the ploy to root
out Saraki is a northern agenda.
And also, the rumoured 10 million man-match by northern
youths to move for the resignation of Saraki confirms my initial postulation.
The controversies surrounding Saraki who is the number 3 man
in the political hierarchy of Nigeria will contribute immensely in deterring
the anti-graft campaign of Buhari going by the saying that 'charity begins at
home'. Before you change the outside world, you have to change yourself and the
immediate people around you. If Saraki believes his case is as a result of
witch-hunt, then literally, he must have been a 'witch' for the hunter to come
for him. An innocent mind fears no accusations.
Saraki's alleged political persecution also confirms the
Elite theory in political science which postulates that the interests of the
elites are paramount in their rulership of a state in the course of pursuing
the general will of the people. Some certain political figures in Nigeria have
become mystical agents determining the political climate of the country while the
helpless masses can only watch with limited knowledge of developing events.
On a closing note, I am not a fan of the Senate President,
Bukola Saraki who amassed so much wealth without a decent explainable means of
how he generated them. When controversies are paramount, an element of truth
can be subjectively deduced. Saraki's ambitious nature makes him a mosquito on
the scrotum of the APC, it has to been taken out intelligently to avoid a
perpetual damage to the scrotum.
Saraki if not carefully handled could bring about an exodus
of majority of the APC senators to the PDP and give the latter a fair chance to
elect a Senate President. This is very feasible considering the full support he
is getting from the senators of the two warring parties. This could cripple the
APC as they have been termed as an experimental project that will not stand the
test of time.
This is just me thinking aloud again! I am the Village
Town Crier.
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