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One of the golden rules of chivalry is that you do not kick a man when he is already down. So, to the Senate President, Bukola Saraki’s friends and admirers, who might view this piece as rather uncharitable in its directness, you will probably not like reading it, but please, just lump it. A post-mortem of the fall of one of the most recognisable political dynasties (The Saraki household) in this country, in recent memory, is a necessity for any serious observer of the political scene in Nigeria. Besides, just as much as this column has featured critiques of the likes of Nyesom Wike, Rochas Okorocha, and Ayodele Fayose not very long ago, Bukola Saraki too has been in the crosshairs of late. The data were being gathered and mulled over for a future write-up, when the people of Kwara Central Senatorial District unexpectedly “spoke”, rendering today’s column inevitable. “O to ge” (enough is enough), the people’s swan song on the political obituary of Saraki was delivered again and again, with the menace of a breathless tiger with the jaw of its prey in its mouth. Work of powerful political figures (in or out of office), should always be subject to appraisal, not pity. Moreover, the Sarakis have been trustees of the public purse in Kwara State for so long, and were widely thought to have built their castle on terra firma so solid that it could withstand even the strongest political earthquake. Alas, the castle has been found out. It is not as strong as it appears all along; it is a charade.
By all accounts, Saraki is a man born with the proverbial Silver spoon in his mouth. In the dog-eat-dog, poke me I poke you, jagged life of the politician in this country, his rise to fame has been effortless. His path having been cleared for him in advance by the older, cannier, Dr. Olusola Saraki, his father, who was himself Senate Leader between 1979 and 1983. He passed away in 2012. He was the Patriarch, founder, builder, driver, and mover of the Saraki juggernaut in Kwara State. He was the man for whom the phrase, smart politics, was invented. He saw clearly where the dividing line was in the state, and moved ruthlessly to exploit it for his and his family’s benefit. He understood that the old “Muslim North vs Christian South” was a sham and mere pretence for politicians to exploit at will, and he set about to do just that brilliantly. While he was planting the seeds for his family’s financial and economic security from his abode in Lagos, he was, at the same time, doing a similar thing for his family’s political dynasty in Kwara State. So, while he was proud to be a “Lagosian”, and hobnobbing with the movers and shakers in industry there on the one hand, he was equally proud to be a “Muslim Northerner” on the other. He was ‘Olusola’ when in Lagos, and ‘Abubakar’ when in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital. To those who were in the race to make money in the bright lights of the Lagos metropolis, in the 1970s, Saraki was in with the ‘big boys’, and to those in the North seeking to expand the northern political sphere of influence through to the central areas, Saraki was also the flavour of the month after month there too.
The older and wilier Olusola Abubakar Saraki was onto a winner with his acute understanding of the symbiotic relationship between money and political power. He made his way in the defunct National Party of Nigeria led by ex-President Shehu Shagari in the run-up to the 1979 elections, which the party won, and on the platform of which he became Senate Leader. The moment finally came for him to ensure his family’s financial security. Shagari ‘opened’ the Nigerian economy to all comers as it were. “Liberalisation” in the field of economics and industry became a by-word for private accumulation of unaccountable wealth. The country was practically run down and when the time came for another election in 1983, the NPN simply rigged its way back to power, but, quickly found itself being overthrown in a bloodless coup led by none other than Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. Saraki Snr was out of office, but not out of circulation from the corridors of power. He had made enough inroads into the financial contours of Lagos, sufficient for him to launch a bank, Societe Generale Bank of Nigeria towards the late 1980s. By the way, “Societe Generale” is a French banking conglomerate with its headquarters in Paris, France. Exactly what the deal was for Saraki to apply for and obtain the franchise to establish the Nigerian lookalike for the bank is a matter for conjecture. Anyway, suffice it to say that the Saraki ‘North-South project’ had now come full stream with the requisite financial fire power to boot.
Bukola then, had everything made up for him even as he was pursuing his studies in a posh English school, and subsequently in medicine, in London, in the 1980s. Although he graduated in medicine, apart from his brief stint, (a few months in fact), as a “medical officer” at a provincial general hospital in Essex, England, he has never taken up medicine as a career. He was catapulted straight onto the boardroom of Societe Generale as Executive Director, upon completing his medical training. It was the manner of that appointment sanctioned by the elder Saraki, which sowed the seed of the downfall of the family empire later on. Bukola never had to break sweat on his way to the top. Upon return to civilian rule in 1999, Obasanjo handed him the pivotal position of Special Assistant on ‘Budget Issues’ in 2000. He used his exalted position at the heart of the Federal Government to launch his bid for governor of Kwara State in 2003, with the full blessing of daddy, Olusola. His re-election to the office of governor in 2007 was somewhat of a shoo-in. At this point, he had become convinced of his own aural and invincibility, even believing he had surpassed the Patriarch himself, the elder Saraki, in influence and authority.
As Bukola metamorphosed from governor at the end of his eight-year tenure in 2011, to Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria immediately thereafter, he committed his gravest faux pas; spat in the face of his father and mentor, by denying his sister, Gbemisola, passage to the governor’s seat he had just vacated, and against his father’s express wish. Although he had risen to become the apogee of the legendary Olusola Saraki, it was in the nature of the sand castle that he would later become the enfant terrible of the family, and, ironically, its greatest tormentor. No sooner had he entered the hallowed chambers of the Senate in 2011 under the umbrella of the Peoples Democratic Party than he started plotting his way to the summit. He was raised and groomed that way. His defection to the newly rejuvenated All Progressives Congress in 2014 crystallised the plot. The APC, of course, won in 2015, and again, Saraki quickly stuck two fingers at his new party by conniving with the PDP to make him President of the Senate. He then went on to stymie the Buhari administration, but ultimately failed to strangulate the APC from inside the dark corridors of the Senate as he had hoped. His fall from grace at the behest of the electorate on February 23 was part of the Sarakis’ Greek tragedy. The way of the sand castle is the way the cookie crumbles.
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