At the moment, the road to 2019 in Nigeria is quite dusty and highly unpredictable. There are palpable signs that all would not be well with the country. While some religious extremists are busy plotting to hold on to power tenaciously, some underlining politically inspired terrorism is causing concerns in some quarters with some political factors secretly courting a break-up as an option.
Already, there is a growing political intolerance in the land, fears of compromising the electoral process with kid voters in some sections of the country, sectional execution of the anti-corruption war, a major plank of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. With this scourge yet to abet under the All Progressives Congress (APC) rule, and of course, general hardship and deepening poverty, it is very doubtful if the political sovereigns would allow themselves to be easily cajoled as before into voting away their greater happiness for the plundering political vultures.
Similarly, the party systems cannot emphatically boast of the faithfulness of their leaders at all levels or the loyalty of their followers. The whole visible and invisible drama being played is like a jig-saw puzzle- difficult to fix. Yet, the drama goes on.
Regardless of the uncertainties of 2019 Nigeria, there are still some political elite and power seekers whose backstage moves are capable of altering the political permutations in some power blocs. Take for instance, President Buhari. Though the latest ‘’worsening corruption’’ in the country by Transparency International is a major setback for the president given his pre-2015 image and deafening noise on the matter, Buhari still holds the ace in making or marring the chances of his party, the APC.
But, from all that have been playing out since the inception of his Presidency, Buhari appears to be one of the key factors that have been weakening the APC. Patronages and privileges are not evenly spread across the parties that aligned to form the coalition. The parties that were coupled together as the APC were: All Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), and the New Peoples Democratic Party (NPDP).
Of all these parties, CPC has remained the greatest beneficiary of the APC administration under Buhari’s watch. The other members of the coalition are left with crumbs and often harassed by agencies of the government as if they are political lepers. If the travails of the like of Senate President Bukola Saraki is perused, one can easily see the unfairness that is the Buhari APC.
Again, the like of Bola Tinubu is being tapped on to help reconcile the fractured party simply because 2019 is approaching. Yet, since May 2015, nothing has been done in tangible terms to show that the former Lagos State Governor, who retrieved the South-West from the clutches of the PDP is indeed, the National Leader of the APC. Rather, the Buhari crowd worked assiduously behind-the-scenes to diminish his political influence. Tinubu and his political associates are too sophisticated to be used as masons to cement the APC for the sole purpose of 2019.
Furthermore, resisting the National Assembly on the Chairmanship of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) does not tend to portray Buhari as good party man. Chances are if the like of Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State was to be the Chair of the National Assembly, President Buhari would have since dispensed with Ibrahim Magu. Bello is of the CPC section of the APC.
Fact is Saraki may not be a saint. He holds the ace in Kwara State politics and can easily swing the state to any party he pleases. In tormenting Bukola under the guise of an anti-graft war, Buhari may not have calculated the significance of Kwara in APC retaining power in 2019. If Buhari’s anti-corruption war was holistic Transparency would not say the vice is worsening. Obviously, the war doles out different measures for different people and takes delight in shielding politicians with glaring corruption cases once they are willing to defect to the APC.
Some three years after the abortion of the PDP dominance at the Presidential Villa, the Buhari of the pre-2015 era and the Buhari of the post-2015 epoch, are completely different. One wore a messianic toga and the other an ethno-religious irredentist. Out of these two labels, one has badly damaged the Buhari brand and as such, a political deficit to the APC. But for the political almajirins, he is still their god.
But, Abubakar Bukola Saraki is one of the major politicians to watch as the chess game for 2019 gathers heat. Born on December 19, 1962, he rose to political lime light on the back of his father, the iconic Dr. Olusola Saraki, the dominant political potentate of Kwara State politics. As far as Nigeria politics is concerned, Kwara is Saraki and Saraki is Kwara. Bukola emerged as the country’s number three citizen in 2015 against the permutation of his party, the APC.
Before 2015, he was Kwara Governor from 2003 to 2011. He was first elected to the Senate in April 2011, representing Kwara Central Senatorial District, the seat his late father occupied in the Second Republic on the platform of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) to become Senate Leader (1979-1983).
Like all the other rebels that defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) the young Saraki is one of the leaders of the governing APC. He attended King’s College, Lagos, from 1973 to 1978, and Cheltenham College, Cheltenham, London from 1979 to 1981 for his High School Certificate. He then studied at the London Hospital Medical College of the University of London from 1982 to 1987, when he obtained his M.B.B.S (London).
He worked as a medical officer at Rush Green Hospital, Essex, from 1988 to 1989 and was a director of Société Générale Bank (Nig) Ltd from 1990 to 2000. The bank however, went under with the young Saraki on the board. In spite of that, former President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed him as Special Assistant on Budget. During his tenure, he initiated the Fiscal Responsibility Bill, and also served on the Economic Policy Coordination Committee, where he was responsible for the formulation and implementation of several key economic policies for Nigeria.
In spite of all that, the fact that their political dynasty in Kwara which dates back to the late 1970s, still remains unchallenged, makes the monarch of that dynasty a major factor in the political calculation of 2019 and beyond. Like the previous czar of the dynasty was linked with the Scania scandal, the young Saraki is involved in a series of corruption trials (false declaration of assets, embezzlement of state fund). There is even this disturbing scandal of the disappearance of around N3.5 billion refund of Paris Club loan. Also fingered are Aliko Dangote, the Nigeria Governors Forum and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Saraki seems to understand the game of the rich too well. He was said to be a director and a shareholder of Tenia Ltd., a company established in the Cayman Islands in April 2001. Appleby’s records describe Tenia Ltd. as a “holding company.” In August 2013, Appleby had recorded Saraki’s company as “low” risk and listed the company’s address as 30 Saka Tinubu Street on Victoria Island in Lagos, which his lawyers said was rented by him. In 2016, anti-graft operatives obtained a search warrant on the property, as part of an investigation examining the alleged false declaration of assets. Last June, a code of conduct tribunal dismissed charges against him of having falsely declared assets, but the Federal Government vowed to appeal.
“There is nothing unlawful in the ownership of offshore companies,” Saraki’s lawyers said in their response, pointing out that Tenia Ltd. was incorporated two years before Saraki was elected as governor. Tenia Ltd. has never held assets nor conducted business and Saraki rented the property given as Tenia Ltd.’s address in Lagos, Nigeria, his lawyers said. They also said that the Senate president believes the case against him is politically motivated and he is confident that he will come clean.
Like many others since the inception of the current democracy, Bukola Saraki has emerged as a powerful symbol of the rotten sweetness of democratised corruption in the country. The Red Chamber of the National Assembly under Saraki has vowed that Magu’s head must be cut off or everything in the country would be grounded to a halt. The current National Assembly under the leadership of Saraki is alleged to be the most dangerously corrupt in the history of the country’s Legislature.
It seems Nigeria is witnessing the smooth operations of the smartest looting circles. Critics say the primary reason why graft is thriving in the country is because perpetrators at all levels have been clever enough to ensure that all relevant parties are settled and quick to be card-carrying members of the APC.
And, given the internal friction of the APC, Saraki has the capacity as things currently stand, to unleash hell on President Buhari’s administration if pushed too hard.
By all perceivable standards, Saraki is a smooth political operator. He also financed the election of President Buhari. He was able to outsmart political strategist like Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the theoretical National Leader of the APC to emerge Senate president with a strong PDP backing. The cabal behind Buhari needs him. Mistreating the enfant terrible of Kwara politics could land him in the political bedroom of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar or Tinubu or any other very attractive options.
For now, it is not politically very wise to mess with the young messy Saraki.
