By Dele Moses
In 2011 Senator Bukola Saraki became a political warlord in Kwara State after his choice candidate for the governorship seat of the state won the governorship election of that year. As at the time the election was conducted Saraki was the incumbent governor rounding off his second term of office while the contest to succeed him in office was fought by at least three prominent candidates from different parties of which that of his party triumphed.
With the victory, Saraki could also be said to assume greater influence and authority in the politics of the state than he had had previously as the election showed that he had been in the command of a political structure that could fight a political contest in the state successfully.
He had before then involved in contests which he won to emerge as the the governor of the state both in 2003 and 2007. But in the two contests he was not the warlord, the structure with which he fought in the contests was built and led by his father, Senator Olushola Saraki, while he, as the candidate, emerged victorious with the aid of the structure.
However in 2011 the structure split because Saraki and his father did not share the same position on the choice of candidate to succeed him as the governor. He did not only maintain the part of the structure that went with him but also built on it to fight the 2011 contest and with his own structure he succeeded in having his party the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) emerging victorious in the election winning the governorship seat, National Assembly seats and most of the seats of the state House of Assembly.
There was a reconcilation that made the split structures to later come back as one before the Saraki senior died in 2012 and when the elder stateman died Saraki junior inherited the structure as a single body and also became successor of his father as the potilical leader of the state.
In 2015 Saraki moved this structure from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress (APC) on the platform of which they contested the general election of that year. They were very successful in the contest as they won the executive and all legislative seats they vied for. Saraki who won the central Senatorial seat of the state for the second time went on to emerge the President of the Senate at the National Assembly. The governorship candidate he supported in 2011 was reelelcted in 2015. These feats made him the undisputed political leader of the state after the demise of his father.
However there was a kind of revolution four year later in 2019 when in the general election of that year Saraki and his side lost woefully as they were not able to win any seat contested in the election. This made the political control of the state to slip from the hand of Saraki and his inherited dynasty that had been in charge since the Second Republic.
Saraki’s camp lost in the election after it moved out of the APC and returned to the PDP. When the decision to return to the PDP was taken, not all other bigwigs in the camp followed Saraki back to the party while many of the opposition politicians in the PDP left the party and moved to the APC.
The APC became the platform for those who were formerly in Saraki’s camp either during the leadership of the father or of the son but have decided not to identified with the camp again and those who have never been in the camp. In this party, they formed a formidable opposition and presented themselves as a viable alternative to the Saraki’s camp.
Their aspiration which was to end Saraki’s dynastic rule in the state meshed with that of many people in the state as their slogan of “O to ge” (Enough is Enough) became widely popular among the people.
This opposition group before going into the election proper did primary elections for the various seats it wanted to contest. That of the governorship was declared to have been won by Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq and he became the flagbearer of the party for the governorship election.
After wining the 2023 election the APC repeated the same feat in 2019 as Abdulrazaq won his second term bid while other candidates presented for the national and state legislative seats also won. Their major opponent in this election was also the Saraki’s camp which still contested on the platform of the PDP but as opposition party and not as the ruling party it was in 2019.
The APC went into the 2023 election almost as intact as it did in 2019 though with minor rift which did not however constitue a dangerous crack in it fold. Most of its candidates for the 2019 election were retained for the 2023 election. Few were replaced among whom the most prominent was Senator Yahaya Oloriegbe of the Kwara Central Senatorial District, who lost the primary election to Saliu Mustapha who went on to win at the election proper.
The struggle that dislodged the. Saraki’s dynasty and brought the APC to power was a collective one that involved many politicians that shared the aspiration of ending the reign of that dynasty in the politics of the state. They all worked together without any one emerging as authority figure who led with his whims and caprices. There were, among them many bigwigs each with his own clout and structure. The party was led by one of the bigwigs who was a serving Minister and who together with some elders supervised the primaries in which the party candidates for the general elections emerged.
The leadership after the victory of 2019 was a bit mired in crisis between the Minister and the governor the party has produced but this did not affect the party at the 2023 poll as the crisis was to some extent kept at bay while the governor fully took charge the leadership of the party.
Saraki, after his camp lost the 2019 election did not drop interest in the politics of the state. He was still giving the camp leadership that could sustain it till another round of election and he led the camp into the 2023 contest but it suffered the same fate of woeful defeat as it did in 2019
The politician has still not yet been discouraged. He is still nursing the hope of regaining the political control of the state. He has not go to sleep since he lost the second time. Rather, he has been relentless in his preparation for the 2027 contest. Though some of his associates have left him for the APC he is still very determined of slugging it out once again with his opponents.
This time he appears to be more calculative and strategic in his preparation for the contest. He is said to be deploying many strategies both at the state and at the federal level to ensure he did not lose the contest again.
One of the strategies he appears to be adopting and wich seems to be manifesting fortunes for him now is the strategy of winning to his side influence from the APC in the state.
The APC recently conducted its primary elections in preparation for the 2027 general elections but the crisis that ensued from the primaries have balkanised the party. The results of the primaries seem to show that the winning aspirants are all the choice of the Governor Abdulrazaq who himself also emerged as the candidate of the party for the Kwara Central senatorial election.
The governorship ticket was declared to be won by the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Salihu Yakubu Danladi at a primary election that other governorship aspirants claimed did not actually hold. The announcement of Danladi as the winner of the primary election and consequently the governorship candidate of the party was seen by the other 15 apirants in the contest as an imposition of him on the party.
Aspirants who rejected the outcome of the party primaries consistently protested the results but it appeared that their grievances have not yet been addressed satisfactorily to them. They formed what became known as G15 through which they were making joint demands.
They were said to have held the view that while the O to ge movement with wich the APC overthrew the Saraki’s dynasty was
meant to put an end to a dynastic rule it was not intended for a new phase of such rule. They reportedly accused Abdulrazaq of trying to establish another dynastic rule by imposing his choice candidates on the party.
They were said to have taken the position that Abdulrazaq could not continue to persistently be the major beneficiary of the O to ge movement because while the movement was championed by many of them in the APC Abdulrazaq was not exceptional in the struggle but was only fortunate to have been given the governorship ticket in 2019.
The aggrieved aspirants reportedly demanded that if the governor would be insisting on his choice as the governorship candidate of the party he should not also take the tickets for all of the national and state legislative seats but concede some of the tickets to them.
The APC set up a committee to reconcile the different positions in the party after the primary elections and the committee has submitted its report to the party’s leadership. The committee while submitting the report disclosed that it met with the aggrieved aspirants and that it had their assurance that they would not leave the party.
However, it appears that the party has not yet taken any action on the report of the committee as differing positions in the party seem to subsist while no adjustment is said to have been made to the list of the party’s candidates for the general elections that reflected compromise on the lists
Some of the G15 members have now entered into relationship with Saraki’s camp to be part of the camp or identified with the camp at the general election. It was speculated that Saraki had had an understanding with some of these aggrieved aspirants that they would work with him in the PDP while he would make some valuable concessions to them. It is said that while some of the aspirants will personally contest posts at the election on the platform of the PDP some others will nominate candidates for posts.
Saraki is said to have, as his major interest, the governorship seat which he wants his candidate to win. The aggrieved APC aspirants were said to be ready to work with him for him to realise his wish while he will in turn support them in their own bids.
One of the aggrieved aspirants is Senator Mustapha. He had wanted to clinch the governorship ticket of the APC while not contesting the ticket for the senatorial election with Governor Abdulrazaq who wanted to replace him at the Senate. Mustapha is just running his first term in the Senate but the governor who is from the same Senatorial district with him and who is concluding his second term of office had interest in going to the Senate.
Supporters of the governor are claiming that Mustapha before the 2023 election had a pact with the governor that he would only spend a term at the Senate and would remain loyal to the governor but the politician denied entering into such an agreement. It however seems that he had known all along that the governor would want to go for the Senate as he did not seek the party’s ticket for the seat again but opted for the governorship
The senator has left the APC for the PDP and has been given the ticket of the PDP to contest the Senatorial election. He has by this defection come to the Saraki’s camp to fight the contest of the 2027 against Abdulrazaq. He would be locking horns with Abdulrazaq in the senatorial contest while would also be expected to canvassed votes for the governorship candidate of the PDP
Mustapha is a strong politician in his senatorial district and Governor Abdulazaq does not appear to tower above him in the district in term of structure and popularity. He has also spread his support base across the state with many people in the state seeing him as marketable governorship candidate. He will likely be a big asset to the Saraki’s camp which is after regaining the control of politics of the state.
Another aggrieved APC aspirant is said to have nominated candidate for the PDP for the Kwara North Senatorial District election while he would work for the PDP at the poll though he is still yet in the APC.
There is also a former APC member, Saheed Popoola, who after leaving APC for the Social Democratic Party (SDP) has now pitched tent with Saraki in the PDP. He was part of the O to ge movement and in 2019 he was elected to the state House of Assembly on the platform of the APC but later parted ways with the party reportedly when he and Governor Abdulazaq were no longer in good terms.
He has also been favoured with the ticket of the PDP for the Kwara South Senatorial District election. He is also expected to draw support for the Saraki’s camp in the district during the governorship election.
Saraki having conceded most other vital tickets except that of the governorship to his enemies turned allies with the plan that the new allies would work for him in the governorship election could be said to have taken a strategic stride that would aid him in squaring up to the task of winning back the control of the state politics by 2027. The ranks of the APC may have been depleted to some extent by his strategy and the party may have to restrategize if it is not to lose the contest to Saraki
