What’s On The Mind Of The Sarakis?

By Comfort Obi

Of course, you know the Sarakis of Ilorin, Kwara state.  They are a family one cannot ignore.

But no longer.

They are facing the greatest humiliation of their lives. Their greatest political embarrassment. The wrapper which covered them up is off. They walk naked. And are exposed to the whims and caprices of those over whom they had lorded.

But not many people are crying for them. They say they don’t deserve it. What they are going through is what they brought upon themselves, not a few people allege.  A consequence of a combination of arrogance, lower-drunkenness, greediness, incontinency, and, betrayal.

For over two decades, the Sarakis, headed by their late  irrepressible patriarch, Oloye Olusola Saraki, held Kwara  and its people by the jugular – politically.

You know the story. Nobody became anything, politically, without the express permission of the Oloye.

A medical doctor, it is not quite known that he practiced medicine. Or that he built and equipped any good hospital with his enormous wealth.

He found more comfort in the soap-box than in the consulting room.

And what a success he made of it. Politics brought him wealth, power, influence and name-recognition. He was a Senator. And the Senate Majority Leader during the President Shehu Shagari administration.

In Kwara, he was revered. To many Kwarans, especially, the underprivileged and the not-too-literate, Saraki senior was a god.

His word was law. He was the alpha and omega. Nobody could challenge him. You did so at your own peril.

He made and unmade governors. It was as if he was changing his underwears.

The ultimate political godfather,  when he got tired of installing others governors, alleging betrayal and disloyalty on the part of a couple of them, he took a look at his backyard, plucked his medical-doctor-turned-banker-son, Bukola, and installed him governor.

At the time he pulled him out, Bukola was the Managing Director of his family bank, Societe Generale. But his father wanted him to be governor. He succeeded in making him governor.

Same time as Bukola was governor, his father also installed his younger sister, Gbemi, a Senator. So, Saraki had two high profile children. One, a governor, the other, a Senator. The old man wanted everything in his family. All to himself. And he wanted more. Political greediness? Correct. Selfishness? Correct too. Looking down on others? Not far from the truth.

But the people didn’t mind. He had a way of getting them. He bought their loyalty. And he did that in a simple manner.

He fed the multitude. The masses – the poor, the aged, the underprivileged. They loved what they got. They have been conditioned not to bother with education. Not to be taught how to fish. They just loved assembling near his expansive compound, another expansive empty acres of land, boasting of of a couple of miserable structures, we now know is called “Ile-Arugbo”. They just assembled before him, singing his praises, fawning and groveling before him. Scrambling over what he threw at them. He loved all that.

It is not just in Kwara that such things happen. In many states, a good number of the poor really don’t even appreciate it when you put their children through school, or construct roads, or provide good drinking water. They like to be given handouts – food or “small-small” money each time they assemble in one’s house.

Saraki senior knew that. And exploited it to the fullest. It massaged his ego. And tied the people perpetually to his loins. He meant it to last forever.

So, eight years of Saraki Jnr’s Governorship, and Saraki Snr, the Emperor of Kwara state, decided to keep the office of the governor permanently within his household. Must be  from his groins.

To achieve that, he brought forward his daughter, Gbemi, to take the place of her brother, Bukola. Just a simple  exchange of office between his two children. Bukola, to become Senator, and Gbemi, to be the Governor.

This decision was too much to bear. Many Kwarans found it insulting. Yet, had no guts to challenge him.  But, a revolt came from unexpected quarters. From his own backyard. His own loins. And, marked Oloye’s end, politically for, his son, Saraki Jnr,  had other plans.

He felt his father had crossed the red line. He said it would be unfair and immoral to replace a Saraki governor with another Saraki governor. So, for the first time, somebody actually, seriously, challenged Saraki senior-his own son. Unbelievable.

But the Oloye continued to push for his daughter’s governorship aspiration.  To see to that, he and his daughter, Gbemi, quit the PDP, and founded another political party.

Gbemi contested under the new party, and was given a bloody nose.

For the first time, Saraki senior suffered a defeat in Kwara. And its consequences were deep.

It split the Saraki family.

Father and son not only became political enemies, it shook the Saraki family to its roots. Bukola and Gbemi became bitter enemies, not just politically, but in everything.

It is doubtful if Saraki senior forgave his son before he passed on.

When he died, his two most prominent children were at daggers point. Each was on his/her own. They mourned, not as a family, but separately. It was “to thy tents o Israel”. And, since then, nothing has been the same in the family.

Bukola and Gbemi made sure they belonged to different political parties from then on. They fought each other. A house divided.

When Bukola jumped from the PDP to the APC, Gbemi jumped from the obscure political party under which she contested, to the PDP. And when Bukola quit the APC, and went back to the PDP, Gbemi found comfort in the APC. She became an APC leader in Kwara.

When her brother and his wife were descended upon, from all sides, by  Federal Agencies, particularly, the Code of Conduct Tribunal and the Economic Financial  and Crimes Commission, EFCC, she said not a word. It is not confirmed, but not a few people insist it was because he, Bukola Saraki, dared aspire, contested, and became the Senate President. His party wanted another as Senate President. But he bulldozed himself through, all the same. They never forgave him.

Gbemi joined in the political destruction of his brother. Their enmity was, still is, deep, very deep. And all because, her brother refused to support her to succeed him in office as governor.

A house divided against itself is bound to fall. It quite didn’t occur to both of them that by fighting so stupidly and, so disgracefully, they were destroying their father’s legacy. They were laying themselves bare for political destruction. They opened their flanks for political enemies, those who have been boiling over their father’s political acquisition of Kwara, to pounce. Why would they remain political slaves to one family for decades?, they asked.

Obeying  African tradition , her elder brother, who happens to be Bukola,  automatically became the head of the family at their father’s passing. Publicly fighting her brother means publicly fighting their father’s legacies, and destroying the family . And, what a father he was.

He pampered his children. He gave them the best education. He made them politically important. He made them wealthy. He gave them name- recognition. I am not sure any Nigerian knows any other Saraki, except them. When you mention Saraki, they are the only ones Nigerians know.

The final nail on their father’s political coffin was fiercely driven in when ‘O to Ge’ (Enough is Enough) was born. It swept the Sarakis and whatever political influence they had away. They are in a political hole. And,  are not likely to come out of it soon.

For the first time, the Sarakis were not able to install the governor of Kwara state. Or anybody. Bukola lost his Senatorial seat.  And his party won no seat anywhere. He said he was rigged out. That’s a first.  A number of people have not recovered from the shock of that defeat. They now  know that the  Sarakis are defeatable.

A house divided.

Kwarans, led by their urbane Governor, AbdulRahaman AbdulRazaq, are making a song and dance out of this monumental defeat of the Sarakis. Freedom, at last, they chorus.

So, what next in Kwara? Go for their jugular. Why not? The Sarakis have become powerless. Even a number of their allies and friends have turned against them. They are mocking them.   Nigerian politics is full of sh.t! There is no ideology. Loyalty is like “story, story”.

There is none.  It is money for hand, back for ground. Nigerian politicians go where the wind blows. Check the number of high profile PDP members who jump to the APC everyday. Check Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi’s double speak and childish pranks. His Cross River State counterpart, Professor Ben Ayadi is no better. They are neither here nor there.

Indeed, a couple of years ago, when Senator Florence Ita-Giwa, surprisingly, jumped to the APC from the PDP, the plan was for two of them to leave together. When he began to dilly-dally, Ita-Giwa left without him. She  retraced her steps in the heat of the 2019 presidential election. There is no price for knowing why. Against all expectations, however, what most people thought would be did not work out.

But I digress.

So, back to the Sarakis.

When Gbemi was appointed the Minister of State for Transportation, I said to myself: ‘Ah, head or tail, the Sarakis win, thanks to their father.’

His son was a two-time governor, Senator, Senate President, surpassing his father who was Senate Leader. His daughter was a Senator, now Minister. You know, almost like the Bush family in the US.

But apparently, the leadership of the APC in Kwara does not take Gbemi seriously.

Here is why.

When you publicly run-down your own, that’s what you get. You lose the respect of  those you think you are with. They say to themselves: ‘If she can run down her own, join us to fight her own, who are we? In future, she will do same to us.’

So, this other day when the Kwara state government decided to strip her family of the acres of land his father had, for years, appropriated, her feelings were not considered.  She was not even consulted.

The ownership of Ile-Arugbo was not only stripped from the Sarakis,  some structures therein were pulled down during an uncivilized hour.

Bukola has, expectedly, cried foul. And made all the right noises. But who cares? He has gone to court over it. Goodluck to him.

He said his father acquired the land, using one of his companies.  The government asked him to show proof of payment and ownership. None was forthcoming. So Bukola found solace in whipping up sentiments. He said the acres of land were just there for his father to use as the venue for taking care of the aged, the underprivileged. Women, in particular.  You know, ”saraka”, little money here and there, little food here and there. Nothing much. It was  the “saraka” that tied them to him. Poor people. They had no choice, especially, as Saraki the son, continued from where Saraki, the   father, stopped. The women protested the revocation, but the government pushed them aside, and ignored them. And Government  has the law behind it. It, also, asked the right questions. If your father legally acquired the land, show the proof. The government said the old man simply appropriated the land, free, to himself. Not a few people agree.

The land, the government says,  was meant for the State Secretariat and a clinic for civil servants. And the Olori appropriated it to himself.

Most people in power do that. They simply appropriate both people’s and government’s land to themselves. In Imo, among many others, the most spectacular was former Governor Rochas Okorocha’s appropriation of the acres of land meant for the staff quarters of the old IBC. He relocated his personal school to the place. One of the things the now out-gone Emeka Ihedioha’s tried to do was retrieve government land, allegedly, appropriated by Okorocha, back to the government, to the people.  The wish is that the Hope Uzodinma Government will continue from there. But, again, I digress.

When the ownership of the land was taken away from the Sarakis, Gbemi said not a word. She only reacted days  after the bulldozing of a couple of structures there.

She said she was  consulting with her allies. And those of her father. She said the governor did not consider her position as a senior party member before revoking her father’s ownership of the land. I disagree.

Is Gbemi saying, the governor should dash them acres of peoples’ land because she is a senior party member? What the governor is saying in another language is that the land wad stolen from government.

Gbemi also said the governor’s aim was to destroy her family, to destroy her father’s legacy. Again, I disagree. Her father’s legacy was destroyed when she and Bukola engaged each other in a “rofo-rofo” fight. Gbemi says she is distressed because live bullets were fired at defenseless women. And that she also saw bullet shells within her own compound.  Eh yaaaa!

The Sarakis should blame themselves for what they are experiencing. It is so bad that even President Buhari, who hunted Bukola no end, is intervening between the Sarakis and the state government. Buhari ke?

I don’t know if the Sarakis have any regrets. They  should. If Bukola did not betray the PDP in 2015 to, as claimed  by his supporters, fund  his zone and delivered it to the APC, may be they still would have their acres of land.

If he didn’t go against the APC, and left the office of the  Senate President  alone in 2015, he would have kept his land. If he didn’t re-decamp to the PDP from the APC,  in 2019, and made up with the party leadership, he might still have been a Senator, and kept his father’s legacies intact. He might still have been in charge of Kwara.

As for Gbemi, if she had been with her brother, and presented a common front, things might have been different. Perhaps.

In sum, not many people are shedding tears for the Sarakis. They say it serves them right. Some people say it is the law of Karma. I don’t know. But, perhaps.

Obi is the Editor-in-Chief/CEO of The Source (Magazine), https://thesourceng.com. Email: [email protected], [email protected].