Bukola Saraki: Time to shine or melt

Similarly, Bukola too has been in the trenches for most of his political life.

After serving as a presidential aid during Olusegun Obasanjo era, with the support of his father, regarded as the godfather of Kwara state politics, he fought and won the governorship of the state. As if he had affinity with conflicts, Bukola was embroiled in a sibling feud that pitched him against his sister senator Gbemi, who wanted to succeed him as governor.
Fearing the potential consequences of handing over the reins of government to his sibling with the attendant concern that kwarans may wonder if the governance of Kwara is a family heirloom of the sarakis, Bukola demurred. That is in addition to the fact that the existential reality in Kwara state is that it is predominantly a Muslim state where women are not usually heard nor seen.
His seeming obstinacy pitched him against his patriarch dad who was on the side of his daughter in the ‘internecine’ war and passed away after Bukola won the battle and Gbemi lost. Although, Bukola has been battle tested, the struggle for the senate presidency is by far the fiercest and formidable political battle so far fought by the embattled senator. With an array of powerful forces with the sole purpose of torpedoing his ship of ambition to lead the senate, he put on his thinking cap and came up with bizarre, if not Byzantine strategies, like sleeping over the night in a car in NASS car park to avoid being arrested or kidnapped by his formidable foes who were intent on preventing him from presenting himself for election as senate president. Riding on the back of such political dexterity, he planted himself on the senate presidency, in a manner that left his admirers holding their breath and his opponents licking their wounds.

In a very uncanny manner, Hilary Clinton’s main opponent in the Democratic Party primaries, Bennie Sanders has been accusing her of raising her hefty campaign funds from the Wall Street, which as Sanders alleges, makes her a rich establishment woman and therefore not a progressive and undeserving of the presidency of the USA. Such sentiments, in my view, are being echoed here in Nigeria too and therefore part of the reasons Bukola Saraki is facing political crucifixion by his traducers.
Latching onto the array of properties that they allege that the senate president owned onshore and offshore, and did not declare when he was governor, they conclude that he is a bourgeois whose ambition to be senate president – which in their view is a precursor to taking a shot at the presidency in 2019 or beyond – should be deflated. How so hypocritical!
If Hilary Clinton survives the political shenanigan and gets elected in the USA, she would not only be the first female president, but also a millionaire, probably the first, since the time of Henry Ford. Only billionaire, Ross Perot, an independent  candidate who ran against Bill Clinton and George W Bush as well as the Republican, Mitt Romney, part owner of investment firm, Bain capital, who contested against Obama in 2012 that could have been in the same club of millionaire presidents.
In the unlikely event that the loquacious hate monger and Republican party candidate, Donald Trump beats Clinton in the race to the Oval Office, assuming he becomes the GOP candidate, he would be the richest president that the USA ever had and Americans would accept, and not begrudge him because he was already a billionaire through enterprise in real estate business before emerging as the president.
Back home in Nigeria, not many of our compatriots realize that Bukola Saraki, an ex banker would be like Trump (in terms of wealth) if he runs for and wins the office of the President in 2019 or beyond. As a banker of many years standing and having started as a middle level career banker, after graduating as a medical doctor, the senate president has proven himself to be a wealth creator and deserves his status as multi properties owner. His peers in the financial services sector, who attained the level of executive directorship and substantial ownership in the banking sector, can boast of similar affluence in terms of assets acquisition.
Being a veteran of many investments in Nigeria spanning decades, he is deserving of his high net worth status, in my reckoning.
Since politicians like to deploy all manner of armaments including blackmail as weapons in political battles, under declaration or anticipatory declaration of assets, as his antagonists allege, has become a deadly Arsenal being used against a rising star, who till date personifies the youth generation in the top echelon of govt.
As devotees of Nicholi machiavelli would posit, “The end justifies the means” hence political opponents would stop at nothing to pull down Saraki. For the avoidance of doubt, l do not support corruption and l would be the first to insist that the senate president faces the consequences of his crime if he had been caught with his hands in the ‘cookie jar’ of Kwara state where he served two terms as governor. In other words, Saraki won’t have my sympathy if he was being tried by the ICPC or EFCC for financial embezzlement, but having not been accused  of stealing the common wealth of Kwara people while in office, but for the offense of under or over declaration of his assets, which may be considered a misdemeanour, l regard the Code Of Conduct Tribunal, CCT trial, a political machination or gimmick engineered by his political opponents  to crash his purported future presidential ambition which is odious to me.
Fortunately, majority of the members of the red chamber concur with the view above and they have unequivocally expressed their solidarity through a resolution disseminated to the members of the public via a press statement.

The resurgent Supreme Court has ruled perhaps according to point of law, so Saraki has no other option than to allow the trial at CCT continue, but caution should be taken so that the tribunal does not throw away the baby and the bath water and in the process incur the wrath of Nigerians who have become more savvy and adept at deciphering political rights and wrongs in Nigerian political environment which is fast descending into a jungle of sorts, where politics is brutish, long in trickery and short in altruism.

Magnus Onyibe
Magnus Onyibe, a development strategist, futurologist and former commissioner in Delta state govt is an alumnus of Fletcher School of Law And Diplomacy, Massachusetts, USA sent this piece from Abuja.