This certainly is not the best of times for Senate President, Bukola<\/p>\n
Saraki. From all seeming indices, he is living in borrowed times and the
\ndebts he has to pay for pushing his ambitions so vauntingly as he did in
\nthis dispensation far outweighs the benefits he might have gained from
\nthat effort. He has been kicked, shoved around, boxed and chased around as
\nmuch as he had boxed, bitten, schemed and plotted to promote his
\ninterests. These are normal accoutrements of power and its pursuit, you
\nmight say, and nothing is wrong with that. Oh yes, Bukola Saraki is taking
\na normal course. It is his due right to nurse, promote and pursue his
\nambition as it us the rights of those that he feels are against him to
\nstop his ambition, if it impinges on theirs. So why the heck is he making
\nan issue of this?<\/p>\n
To be frank, I don’t have personal distaste for Saraki, not that it
\nmatters though, but I have serious reservations about the means he employs
\nto pursue his ambitions especially his present position as Senate
\nPresident. I am galled that Saraki has to practically reinvent the Italian
\nSocial Scientist, Niccol\u00f2 di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, in his bid to
\nbecome Senate President and he never minded if his party implodes in the
\nprocess. Sure, you have the right to adopt any tactics that suits you to
\ndrive your ambition but where it poses great danger to the platform that
\neven made you what you are, it becomes a cardinal sin. As long as you
\ndeign your means right, nothing gives you the impetus to question the
\nmeans your opponents employ to deal with you. If all is fair in battle,
\nthere should be no prisoners on every side.<\/p>\n
So I wholly disagree with Saraki’s monotonous effort to raise outcries
\nthat his present trial before the Code of Conduct Tribunal is the
\nhandiwork of his political enemies. I seriously question his scruples in
\npoliticising what is clearly a criminal breach. But even if we agree with
\nhim, which law says that his political opponents have no right to exploit
\nhis indiscretions to do him in? Which law verifies what is acceptable or
\nnot in prosecuting political battles? Did such law also vet the amoral way
\nSaraki became the Senate President? On my last check, Saraki has not
\nceased being a politician so why is he making deft efforts to run away
\nfrom what he terms the politicisation of his corruption charges when all
\nhe needs to do to clear every fog; political, criminal or otherwise, is to
\nsatisfactorily prove his innocence on the charges raised against him? At
\nleast, the charges are clear and cadent or is he oblivious of them? But
\nSaraki is a politician; a consummate one for that matter given the way he
\nemerged as Senate President so why is he afraid of political battles?<\/p>\n
But then, my original thoughts after the Saraki emergence as Senate
\nPresident was that Saraki would have deployed wisdom and tact in playing
\nhimself back to the party he badly hurt by his act of betrayal. Lo and
\nbehold, he displayed the worst case of political na\u00efvety any politician
\nof his cadre has ever\u00a0 exhibited. Possibly drunk from his victory, Saraki
\nrubbed the salt further on a festering injury by his conduct immediately
\nafter his emergence and till date. If today, the plank he is leaning on to
\nevade a most horrific case had collapsed, how can any person mourn with
\nhim when he tossed a golden opportunity to mend the fences he callously
\npulled down enroute the satiation of his ambition? Saraki must have been
\ngoaded by the rabid urge the PDP provided for him to over reach himself
\nbut he showed himself a horrible student of power and history . His
\ncloning of Machiavelli was a default act that rather worsened his woes
\nthan sooth them.<\/p>\n
But peace, let me ask Saraki some questions as he sweats to find ways to
\ndodge an impeding eclipse. What was on your mind when you went impudently
\nagainst your party’s decision to pick one of you APC contenders to the
\nSenate Presidency through an internal election, to be its choice of senate
\nPresident? What was on your mind, Bukola Saraki, when you formed an
\nillicit cohort with a hurting, bitter\u00a0 and mischievous PDP that was
\ndesperate to play the role of spoiler to APC’s rightful choice for
\nlegislate leadership?\u00a0 What was on your mind when you cut your nose to
\nspite your face by conspiring with PDP to rob APC of its rightful dues?<\/p>\n
Bukola Saraki, what exactly was on your mind when you made an evil deal
\nwith PDP to share out tip legislative positions that ordinary belong to
\nthe ruling party in exchange for supporting you to emerge Senate President
\nin clear denigration of your party APC? What was in your mind as you
\nteamed up with malevolent PDP to spit on your party and taunt it by
\nemerging in an exclusive election that involved the full cahoots of PDP
\nsenators and a sprinkling of APC senators who are your loyalists? What was
\non your mind when majority of APC senators were schemed out through such
\ndirty means as you and your gangsters employed, to coner the senate
\nleadership?<\/p>\n
Bukola Saraki, what was on your mind as you proceeded to further rub shit
\non the face of your party by ignominiously refusing to accept your party’s
\nchoice for Senate key positions, in preference for your own lackeys? What
\nwas in your mind when you and your lackeys, with obtrusive backup of the
\nsly PDP, insisted on refusing good counsel and defying the party’s
\npreferences for positions they have exclusive rights over? What was in
\nyour mind as you danced so alluringly to the drum beat a distressed PDP
\nwas beating for you and mocked your party in an astonishing display of
\npolitical foolishness?<\/p>\n
I ask you, Bukola Saraki, what was on your mind as you turned Father
\nChristmas to a distressed PDP, dishing out critical senate committee
\nleadership to your PDP cohorts, to the sorrow and chagrin of your party
\nleaders abd senators? What was in your mind as you became the official
\nleader of the PDP in a house with majority APC senators? What was in your
\nmind as you robbed APC to pay PDP in a manner that rankles decency? What
\nwas on your mind as made your party the enemy\u00a0 and the opposition party,
\nthe ruling party in the senate? What was on your mind as you became the
\npatron of the PDP and swerved debates to ridicule your party in your
\nsenate?<\/p>\n
Let me ask you Bukola Saraki, what was on your mind as you slyly sent your
\nman Friday and quaint bogeyman, Dino Melaye to raise the funny allegation
\nthat N25 billion was stolen in the Treasury Single Account when you knew
\nit was a gregarious bogey? What\u00a0 was on your mind as you teamed up with
\nPDP senators to launch a wild goose chase aimed at rubbishing the
\nPresidency in your false charge that those who you see in your dreams as
\nimpediments to your magisterial reign as Senate President, owns Remita and
\nwere collecting tens of billions of Naira for TSA operations when you knew
\nit was false? By the way, Bukola Saraki, what happened to that your panel
\nyou set up to prove your own lie? You should be decent enough to avail the
\nnation of its findings and tender unreserved apology to whoever you have
\nbesmirched by that infantile prank.<\/p>\n
Pray, what was on your mind, Bukola Saraki, when you launched the
\nhullabaloo of. ‘Missing budget’, ‘Stolen Budget’, ‘Replaced Budget’ etc
\nand sought to rub soot on the presidency, with full support of your fellow
\nPDP senators over the 2016 budget proposal? What was on your mind as you
\ntwirled and sought to announce to the nation that the presidency ‘stole’
\nthe budget it delivered to the senate and that you and your senate will
\nonly deliberate on the original (stolen) budget as delivered by the
\npresidency? What was on your mind when you were pulling these indecorous
\nstunts? What was on your mind when you descended from the Olympian height
\nof senate presidency to the low of a common trickster with a ready mob of
\ntutored hirelings to please?<\/p>\n
Certainly, I don’t believe you, Bukola Saraki, was thinking that APC would
\nhave sat back, sucked all your insults and atrocities and congratulated
\nyou as the smart kid you feel you are and allow you to continue poking
\nyour fingers ceaselessly into its eyes. If you have elephantine scruples
\nthat could be exploited to shove you aside, what makes you to think it is
\nwrong to employ it it deal with the nuisance you have sworn to constitute
\nto your party and its government? What you must realise is that a palm oil
\nvendor is the wrong person to cause commotion in a market. The charges
\nagainst you are entirely criminal and your exculpation\u00a0 lies only in
\nproving convincingly that you were wrongly charged. If your political
\nopponents exploit these misdemeanours of yours to shove you off a stool
\nyou stole, you have no reason to complain because they operate on a higher
\nmoral pedestal than you that connived with enemies to steal and covet what
\nrightly belongs to others.<\/p>\n
I asked these questions because you have sought to evade the real
\ncomponents of your corruption trial to make it look like a political witch
\nhunt. I even shudder at which person has acquired so much power to
\npolitically dust a whole Senate President so badly that he has turned you
\nto a cry baby. You see, you are more politically experienced than the
\nHouse of Representative Speaker, Yakubu Dogara who was guilty of the same
\noffence as you but who has managed his own liabilities so well when you
\nare\u00a0 increasing your own.<\/p>\n
By now, it should be obvious that you, Bukola Saraki, have exhausted your
\noptions to evade your shadows. Whatever was on your mind as you kept
\nturning the table over yourself in your queer management of power has not
\nserved you well. You have jammed the door so violently to your own face.
\nYou have aimed at your big toe and dropped the spear. You have burnt your
\nbridge. You have wasted a golden opportunity to show you have gained real
\nexperience in politics and power management. You see, it takes next to
\nnothing to enter into an illicit alliance with a rolling stone, which the
\nPDP became after the March 28, 2015 election, employ such mischievous
\nalliance to snatch the leadership of the senate as you did, proceed there
\nto share out positions amongst your conniving cahoots but it takes quite a
\nlot to manage such power and stay afloat. By now, Bukola Saraki, you just
\nhave realised the futility of an overwhelming vote of confidence your
\ncolleagues brazenly cook for you. They take nothing to concoct. By your
\nnext date at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, you would have realised that
\nyou are patiently waiting at the doors of jail and not even a global vote
\nof confidence by all legislators in the world will save you from this
\nself-inflicted certainty for you are a failed student of power.
\nPeter Claver Oparah<\/p>\n
Ikeja, Lagos.
\nE-mail: peterclaver2000@yahoo.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This certainly is not the best of times for Senate President, Bukola Saraki. From all seeming indices, he is living in borrowed times and the debts he has to pay…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n