By: Abdulyekeen Mohd Bashir.
This is becoming more than an obsession and no longer hatred, His Excellency Dr Bukola Saraki should watch his steps and take necessary precautionary measures to safeguard his life, person and image, because how will one explain these consistent attacks from the current governor of Kwara State and his followers. A week will not pass by without the agents of the governor attacking the image, person, profile and legacies of the erstwhile President of the Nigerian Senate, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki, a man who is not even in competition whatsoever with anyone living or dead in the State.
These incessant attacks now preempt one to ask, “what else does Gov Abdulrahman Abdulrazak want?” It has always been my thought that victory is enough vengeance for one’s opponent but the reverse is the case in this current situation where the governor himself orders his supposed brilliant but not intelligent CPS, SA on new media, SA on communication and an army of jobless media urchins to unleash their uncouth behaviours to soil the name “Saraki” or drag it just to score cheap political points and showcase themselves as messiahs and the victim as the bad egg.
Why on earth will the appointees of the governor who should be saddled with the responsibility of protecting their principal, sell his candidature via his achievements and feats if he has one. Although, I am not surprised, they can’t give what they don’t possess hence the reason they chose the gutters instead of the roads. What would make a SA to the governor be so engrossed with propaganda to the extent of not knowing his limit and boundaries? At around Sunday evening, The SA to the Kwara State governor Fafoluyi Olayinka on his Social media handles (Facebook and Twitter) posted malicious content alleging that Saraki sent an assassin to kill the Ilorin West/Asa Federal Constituency candidate of the APC. This fake news within hours trended and spread like wildfire and I started feeling pity for the victim not until hours after when Mall. Mukhtar Tolani Shagaya the APC candidate for Ilorin West/Asa summoned the courage to refute the lies and urged both divides to make their campaign issue-based and shun unnecessary heating of the polity.
Shagaya has done the right thing and I hope he can lead by example to call for the arrest and prosecution of the S.A. new media to the governor by so doing, future occurrences of this kind and nature will be avoided.
My short investigations on the matter showed the governor is uncomfortable with the support Dr Bukola Saraki is garnering from the people of the State and the country at large, hence ordered propaganda be reeled out to soil his name and portray he, the governor as the only rallying point, a similar scheme and calculated ploy that was used to swindle Kwarans to voting against Saraki in the 2019 elections.
It is my advice that if Gov AA has lost the goodwill and his support base, he should imbibe the spirit of sportsmanship and withdraw from the race to support a credible candidate, after all, he is running for the interest of Kwarans and not his interest, so why take Saraki issue personal when he, Saraki isn’t even on the ballot or contesting for anything.
I implore the security agents in the State to swiftly wade into this matter and arrest Mr Fafoluyi to douse the tension of reprisal from loyalists of the victims who see the vile attacks on their principal as a dent. The governor should rather focus on governance and his agents focus on campaigns to sell his candidature if there’s anything left to sell instead of creating an imaginary enemy/enmity of Saraki, a man who is less concerned with the activities and antics to distract him. Conclusively Gov. Abdulrahman and his agents should learn the act of accepting defeats as the will of the Almighty Allah and get ready to vacate his position because Kwarans have strongly resolved to reject anything below the bar.
Abdulyekeen Mohd Bashir writes from GCI, Apata, Ibadan.