These are not good times for the Nigerian democracy which a lot of citizens believe is already getting firmly rooted as the preferred political system that will take the country to the Promised Land.
A Nigerian of about 20 years of age certainly did not witness the horrendous experience of the military era. The disregard for popular aspirations of citizens in favour of the personal benefits of the few, the denial of basic human rights, the recklessness with which human lives were taken and the impunity that went with all the wrongdoings could not be easily forgotten by those who were around at that dark corner of Nigeria’s history.
However, the indifference of some of the Nigerian politicians to the yearnings and aspirations of the citizens is indicative of the fact that they have not learnt much from past experiences and are not ready to depart from the path of perdition. Nigerians of young age, in this democratic era, have already become familiar with such political cultures as political assassination, political kidnapping, electoral violence, killer gangs, political cults and so on.
Politicians cause the destabilisation of electoral processes in order to get what they want, not caring who would be hurt of even killed. They pay killers to silence critics or eliminate rivals. They send chills down the spines of communities in an effort to coerce them to tow their ways, and where this fails, they do not mind wasting a number of human lives to make a clear statement that no one should oppose them.
This is the sort of situation that is obtainable in the hitherto politically peaceful Kwara state where, for a long period of time, people were comfortable with the leadership of one political figure in the person of the late Olusola Saraki. The late Saraki’s kindness, generousity, humane disposition and fairness had endeared him to the people of Kwara. They, in return, were ready to follow him in whatever direction he decided to head. There was no coercion, threat or murder to enable supports for him. It was spontaneous, voluntary and genuine.
Before his death, Olusola Saraki promoted his son, Bukola Saraki, to become governor in Kwara state. No one raised an eyebrow. In fact, everyone supported him wholeheartedly, and Bukola ascended to the number one position in the state. But that was perhaps one of the most regrettable political miscalculations the late Saraki made. In his life-time, he saw a son who aspired to overshadow him in the scheme of things in the state, a son who was ready to undermine his political base and sap him of whatever strength he had remaining. The senior Saraki fought his last political battle with his son in 2011, and got brutally bruised. Bukola dealt the last blow to his father and demystified the man’s political sagacity. Olusola Saraki died soon after and Bukola Saraki became the de facto manipulator of Kwara politics.
Surely, the antics of the two Sarakis defer significantly. While the father relied mostly on courting the goodwill of Kwarans, a tool he used so effectively that the loyalty he commanded was almost religious, the son is more selective in his dealings. He relies on specific people he believes will in turn win the people for him. Those people, on their own, want to do everything to justify the confidence he reposes in them. So, they go out of their ways to force people into followership. They also do all sorts of things, some gory, to get the results they want in elections. Steadily, with this style, politics in Kwara is assuming a bloody dimension.
This may account for why the people in Kwara state became apprehensive with the recent arrest of some political cult members who have been maiming and killing people with reckless abandon. The political thugs, known to most Kwarans, have been so bold that they do not even conceal their identities any longer. They have been so sure of protection that they carry out their thuggish activities without bother, and the authorities in Kwara has always appeared uninterested in stopping them.
Interestingly, their arrest elicited a rather unexpected reaction from Bukola Saraki who, incidentally, is Nigeria’s senate president. He said, on the floor of the Senate, that the Kwara State Governor, Dr. Abdulfatai Ahmed “revealed to me an information at his disposal that a group of suspects who had been in police cells for several weeks for cultism and whose investigation had been concluded with prosecution about to commence under the State law based on the advice of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) and the Ministry of Justice were ordered to be transferred to Abuja this morning.
“According to the information available to the Governor, the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Idris Ibrahim directed the Commissioner of Police in Kwara State to immediately transfer the men to the Force Headquarters.
“The plan, as the Governor was made to understand is that, under duress, the suspects would be made to alter the statements they already made in Ilorin. They will then be made to implicate the Kwara State Government, and in particular, myself, in their new statement…”
Reactions to this in Kwara were mixed. To the government, which was also alleging that the police were trying to implicate it, Saraki needs protection from a vindictive Inspector General of Police. Those in authority in Kwara have joined in the efforts to stop further police investigation into the matter. They also want the cult member returned to the state to be prosecuted by the state ministry of justice.
But the ordinary people of the state are heaving sighs of relieve. The less political murderers on the loose, the better the security of all, they have been saying. Rallies have been held to register their support for the police, and they have challenged the state government and the senate president to indicate if they are not happy that killers of their citizens have been curtailed.
While this event keeps unfolding, Saraki’s name came up again in another unrelated bloody incidence. Series of bank robberies took place in a part of Kwara known as Offa which left an estimated 33 people dead a few months ago, and the police said it has apprehended a number of suspects, some of who said they are paid political thugs to the state governor and the senate president. Even though, the armed robbers made it clear that their two benefactors were not privy to the Offa robbery, the police felt that the government in Kwara and Saraki played some roles in stalling investigations and concealing evidence. The police has indicated that it needs to get some more clarifications from Saraki.
The take in all of this is that Nigeria’s senate president, Dr. Bukola Saraki is constituting himself into a needless distraction to the country’s democratic process. The position he holds as the number three citizen in the country does not befit this repeated linkage with alleged crimes and offences. Close to 200 million people’s fate cannot be continuously held hostage by one person who appears to have cultivated the habit of getting into collision course with the law. The Nigerian senate doesn’t need this any longer.
Ibrahim writes from Abuja
END
Be the first to comment