NORTHERN UNION : A POLITICAL PARTY OR  PRESSURE GROUP?

 

The break up of the Northern Union, NU from the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF early in the days of the Obasanjo administration did not come to many as a surprise. Having failed woefully to take over control of the ACF for his selfish ends, Saraki came to the conclusion that the only way out of the situation is to walk out of ACF and set up a parallel organization.

 

That he did and took along with him a few cronies whose motive was also to reap where they did not sow. Thus Saraki floated the Northern Union, NU in order to on the surface unite the Northern Region of old and its people.

 

However and unknown to some of the people he took along from the ACF to the NU, Saraki’s hidden motive is to use the NU to further his selfish  interests he could not have done in ACF since they all realized the direction in which he was going. Saraki wanted to use the ACF to further his political and economic interests.

 

This is largely because those who are conversant with the kind of politicks its leader and national Chairman, Senator Olusola Saraki has been playing since the EFCC dragnet threatened to investigate the collapse of the Societee Generale Bank some years ago. Saraki chaired the board of Directors of the Bank.

 

The Bank is now history largely because of his flamboyant lifestyle and abuse of due financial regulations as the head of the bank. The bank whose shareholders are many is now comatose and no one is doing anything about their monies trapped because of the recklessness of one man.

It was clear that former President Obasanjo used this situation against Saraki for the 2006 elections

 

Today, the true colours of the self appointed King of Kwara politics are coming to focus. Only recently, the Secretary General of the NU, Dr Yakubu Lame came to town with a big ban. Some Nigerian newspapers quoted Lame as condemning calls for the cancellation of the country’s last April elections. Specifically, Lame was referring to the call by the Archbishop of Abuja and Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN to cancel all of Nigeria’s April this year’s elections because they were not transparent and conduct fresh elections next year.

 

It is public knowledge that Lame is no more than a conduit pipe through which the feelings of his master are being dished out to the world just for personal aggrandizement. Lame’s views and by larger implications, his master’s are a manifestation of Saraki’s backwardness and greed. Since Saraki has skeletons in his cupboard, he has no other alternative but to toe the line of illegality, lack of transparency, deceit and stolen mandate which is the hallmark of the Yar’adua Presidency.

 

Saraki is all out to avert the wrath of the regime so that sleeping dogs as per the wrecking of Societe Generale Bank will be allowed to rest. But for how long will these dogs be allowed to sleep? Saraki should know that they cannot sleep forever. Or can they?

 

One begins to wonder why Lame made that statement if not for the simple reason to be in the good books of the illegitimate regime of Yar’adua. It is a fact that the April elections in the country was widely condemned by international and local observers as being far from free, fair and transparent.

 

Or is Lame living in the moon when the elections were held? Otherwise every Nigerian, including the number one beneficiary, Umaru Musa Yar’adua is in agreement that it was flawed. Or whose kite is Lame flying- his own, for juicy political appointment since he has been away from the largesse of office and one understands that he is now in great difficulty of survival or that of his master?

 

Nigerians, particularly Northerners want to know if NU is a political party or a pressure group. To the best of our knowledge, it is a pressure group. But the Lame statement, the conduct of the NU since it came on board and that of its Chairman, Saraki are indicating that it is a political party that is married to the ruling party. If that is the case, he needs to formally register it as a political party with INEC so that he can get the usual government subventions given to political parties for bankrupt politicians like Dr Yakubu Lame and Ghali Umar Na’Abba among others to play around before they are considered for the never to come anticipated political appointments.

 

BARRISTER RAFINDADI MOHAMMED

( rafindadimohd@yahoo.com)

20, Daura Street

Katsina