A former Minister of Youth Development and Sports, Bolaji Abdullahi, has said the decision by former Senate President Bukola Saraki to leave the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2018 was a political mistake that ultimately led to the collapse of the Saraki political dynasty in Kwara State.
Mr Abdullahi, a close associate of Mr Saraki and currently the spokesperson of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), made this disclosure in his memoir, “The Loyalist,” which will be presented to the public on Tuesday.
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The 297-page book provides a gripping account of his two-decade journey through Nigerian politics, offering insights into the workings of government at both state and federal levels.
In the memoir, Mr Abdullahi narrated several events surrounding the 2019 election that led to the ouster of the Saraki political structure in Kwara State.
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Prior to the 2019 election, Mr Saraki had served as governor of the north-central state for eight years and as a senator for eight years. He was also the Senate President between 2015 and 2019.
The political event that led to his emergence as Senate President in 2015 ultimately contributed to his ouster in 2019. Mr Saraki had become Senate President under the APC in 2015, but without the party’s approval.
The APC leadership had wanted Ahmad Lawan in the position, but Mr Saraki worked with opposition senators to take the position. That angered the party and created a tense relationship between the National Assembly and the Presidency for four years.
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Mr Saraki eventually resigned from the APC in 2018 and returned to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but Mr Abdullahi now believes that was a mistake.
That decision also led to the success of the “O to ge” (Enough is Enough) political revolt in Kwara, Mr Abdullahi said.
“The particular mistake I had in mind was that we left the ruling party,” he wrote in the memoir.
Mr Abdullahi noted that on July 6, 2018, the Supreme Court ruled in Mr Saraki’s favour in the false asset declaration case, thereby bringing to a conclusive end one of Nigeria’s most celebrated judicial sagas, which had lasted nearly three years.
Almost immediately, President Muhammadu Buhari issued a statement commending Mr Saraki.
“I have seen many instances where individuals and groups seek the destruction of the judicial institution in the foolish thinking of saving their skin, instead of going through the painstaking process of establishing their innocence. In the case of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, I have seen him take the torturous path of using the judicial process. He persevered, and in the end, the highest court of the land, the Supreme Court, says he is not guilty as charged,” the statement read in part.
“I believe that this was a pivotal moment in his relationship with the APC party leadership, and especially the president. Rather than continuing with his plan to leave the party, he should have reassessed the situation and possibly seized the opportunity to rebuild the relationship, regain the president’s confidence, and consolidate his position as Senate President, at least for another term,” Mr Abdullahi wrote.
In principle, the reasons Mr Saraki gave for leaving the APC could hardly be faulted, the author said.
“But if there was ever a pragmatist, it was Bukola Saraki. He was also a mathematician of power politics. If his calculations had led him to think that whatever interest he was pursuing at the time was best served by remaining in the party, he would not have left, regardless of the bitter experiences he had endured. But his permutations were wrong.
“By leaving the party, he ended up transforming what was essentially a civil conflict into a full-blown war with an enemy that possessed vastly superior firepower.”
At the PDP presidential primary election held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on October 7, 2018, Mr Saraki lost the ticket to Atiku Abubakar and returned to Kwara to reclaim the senatorial ticket he had kept in trust with a surrogate candidate.
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“But, in what was perhaps the biggest scalp claimed by the “O to ge” political revolt, he lost to a relatively unknown opponent, Yahaya Oloriegbe, also a medical doctor, who ran against him on the APC ticket in 2019,” Mr Abdullahi wrote.
The PDP governorship candidate, Abdulrazak Atunwa, also lost to Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq. All the other PDP candidates, from the senatorial to the House of Representatives and the state House of Assembly, also lost, except for one state legislative seat.
“Just one year earlier, no one would have thought this possible. But so it happened that for the first time since 1979, a new set of political leaders were elected into office in Kwara State without the support of the Sarakis,” the memoir stated.
The APC again swept the 2023 polls in Kwara State, extending Mr Saraki’s years in the political wilderness.
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