The shrewd maneuvering of Bukola Saraki where he emerged as President of the Nigerian Senate, in active connivance with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in apparent disregard of the directives of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), has probably thrown up one thing: Saraki is a star in Nigeria’s political firmament.
Saraki’s rise started when he became the Chairman of Nigeria Governor’s Forum, a position in which he served diligently. At that time, the Forum was one and solid group of people who had unified fronts on both party and national issues. The Forum was free of schism and was not beset with internal wrangling as witnessed recently. Saraki used the position to deepen his political reach and formed a common bond with all the governors, a good sign of political understanding using bipartisan appeal as a strategy.
Bukola Saraki
When he emerged a senator in 2007, it was a continuation of foraging into the central political field. But his return to the senate in 2011 was followed by internal political conflagration, the scenario that led to the victory of APC at the presidential election in 2015 and other notable victories which he played to no small feat. Saraki, even though was among some of the power denominators in PDP that became the New PDP, which eventually coalesced into and bolstered the APC, he still enjoyed active support from other diehard PDP members. Often, he was courted by all and sundry and never entered into open political hostility with the PDP. Rather, he built his disagreement on political ideology. That has been his mark of distinction, an appeal too sweet to spew.
When APC leadership decided to play the inglorious political game, it was only going to lead to one thing: APC schism and implosion. It was like a fairytale told by Niccolo Machiavelli in his celebrated book, The Prince. APC based the defense of their mandate and the strength of their party on mercenaries, who swelled their rank. This, Machiavelli said, does not procure one’s stability or security but internal combustion. In the end, the fallout of the National Assembly election made APC hierarchy sound like a broken record.
Yet, not realizing the enormous powers Saraki weighed the moment he was voted in, APC still flouted Robert Greene’s law three in his 48 Laws of Power, where he enjoins everyone to conceal their intention. While Saraki concealed the real intention of accepting PDP’s support in his negotiation to win the struggle, APC leadership was seen indulging in ludicrous political strategy by organizing mock elections to the distaste of not a few Nigerians. Thus, it bolstered Saraki’s position, especially as PDP was always ready to bed with the enemy they know than a friend they do not. Even as Saraki remained firmly PDP in intention but APC by party membership, it was a dangerous game to play with a man APC arrogantly denied held the aces.
position Saraki controls huge heritage and resources back home as an individual. A passionate nationalist and an impeccable politician with cerebral and rational political ideology, he has been able to situate himself in a in which neither side would fail to court him. In other words, PDP are cheesed-off becoming an opposition party after being in power for 16 years. They see Saraki as their personal person (PP), their product. To reclaim their mandate, they would normally support any move to create dissension and dissection in APC or any party, for that matter. Painfully to APC, this early PDP victory has come too quickly.
Even though the president did not buckle under the weight of a highly partisan and overbearing party leadership, the party barked and continued to play into the hands of Saraki, thus strengthening his position. All threats of ‘appropriate’ sanctions, Bola Tinubu’s sour statement where he vowed never to recognize Saraki as the senate president, Oluremi Tinubu’s snub and the behaviour of aggrieved APC parliamentarians, best described as crying babies, all bolstered Saraki’s position and placed him as a man more at home than anyone else.
As senators challenged APC’s unfortunate stance, a senator, Ben Murray-Bruce, summed up what many Nigerians thought: Saraki is not a party president but a senate president of Nigeria.
One thing, which APC was creating was a scenario where Saraki would think and could be urged to act, that his membership of APC was no longer tenable. Even though he said it was unthinkable to return to PDP, would it really be unthinkable for him to return to PDP should the APC warlords make the party too hot for him?
An APC BoT member when probed of the statement said, Saraki said that “to calm frayed nerves so that he won’t be seen as a dissenter and a power grabber”. He continued: “If APC had continued in their hard line stance, PDP would have continued to provide the clement shelter where Saraki will increasingly lean towards.”
Could the APC have done the unthinkable by sending Saraki and Yakubu Dogara to suspension alongside other APC senators who voted for them? What manner of sanction would they have made the party’s anointed duo of Ahmed Lawal and Femi Gbajabiamila emerge the senate president and speaker respectively? Would they have sanctioned the president too, who hastily congratulated them and urged them to serve Nigerians? Would they have sanctioned Atiku Abubakar and Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal congratulating them? Would they also have suspended the whole Kwara APC members and the leader, Abdulfatah Ahmed, the governor?
Unfortunately, APC has still not realized the tag Nigerians long gave the party – Armored Personal Carrier – to means it is a party of strange bedfellows who are only interested in what goes into their pocket. The party since winning many elective positions, has shown exactly that convoluted operational system that has left Nigerians wondering if they made mistake voting them in.
The party’s inability to show good example by staying away from sharing political spoils in the manner PDP were doing has become the cliffhanger. Already, they have bizarrely boxed the president into a corner on whose side he should lean towards. The party itself was enmeshed in what was cut your nose to spite your face – how it should wriggle out of the party quagmire, especially with the unflinching PDP support for Saraki and Dogara. The volte-face was how to swallow the humble pie and accept the status quo but the fear that Saraki is being called the generalissimo and a powerful Nigerian politician who PDP might float in 2019 alongside Ike Ekweremadu, could not sink down well with the APC who termed his emergence a coup.
Unfortunately, APC’s reluctant acceptance of both Saraki and Dogara, after the president was said to have stepped in, has rather increased Saraki’s reckoning, something APC leadership could have avoided. As it stands, only Saraki can decide the political fate of the two major political divides in the red chamber, which ultimately would swing the pendulum of supremacy to one side in the calculus of power ahead of the 2019 electioneering year.
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