The curtain initially came down on the last round of campaigns by the leadership of the Kwara State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) last week in style before the postponement of the exercise last Saturday. HEAD POLITICS MUMINI ABDULKAREEM writes on the development and how it has changed the political narrative in the state.
On Thursday last week, about twenty four hours for parties to stop political campaigns in line with the guidelines of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Ilorin, the capital city of Kwara state, experienced a campaign Tsunami of sort when the Senate President and national leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki rounded up the party’s campaign rally in style amidst pump and pageantry.
The series of events lined up for the day-long ceremony have been described by party members and supporters as another masterstroke underscores Saraki’s political sagacity.
From the Metropolitan Square in Asa Dam road, Ilorin which heralded the rallies for the day, other venues including the Baseball field, Adewole and the vast premises of Baboko Community Secondary, mammoth crowd welcomed the Senate President. Many political watchers described the event by Saraki as saving the best for last in his local government of origin in Ilorin West.
After the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) hosted President Muhammadu Buhari and other national leaders of the party including Asiwaju Bola Tinubu at the Metropolitan Square, the opposition went to town bragging about the crowd that trouped to the venue for the party’s Kwara State rally.
According to a member of the APC who compared the two events but declined official comment, the last rally by Saraki has succeeded in unraveling some things they (APC) were initially afraid of.
“You know, the belief among the APC members in the state is that the camp of Saraki is depleting everyday especially after the decampment of people like Moshood Mustapha, Cook Olododo and Yinka Aluko, who we regarded as three strategists key to Saraki’s continuous electoral victories.
“When the APC held our last Kwara State rally which was graced by the President, the large crowd that turn up for the event was the icing on the cake for us and it was on that basis that people like Tinubu, Lai Mohammed and Rauf Aregbesola bragged APC will win Kwara. The comparism among the party members was that if our rally which has to do with Kwara State alone could attract more crowd than the North Central rally of the PDP also held in Ilorin and at the same venue, then we have every reason to be hopeful and happy. However, what we witnessed during Saraki’s campaign in Ilorin West evaporated most of the hope we had nursed. It was a massive event across strategic places in Ilorin West that point to the fact that we still have a long way to go in this election. That event, I can tell you troubled us and is still given us great cause for concern”, the APC member from Kwara Central added during Saraki’s rally at Baboko.
To be sure, Saraki has used that last round of campaigns in Ilorin West to silence a lot of his critics who have hitherto believe it would be difficult for him to attract such huge and massive crowd of followers in the state in the light of the O to ge lingo. But by far, not only has the Senate President proved his critics and the opposition wrong, the event pointed to the fact that it may be difficult for his opponents in the Kwara Central Senatorial ticket, Ibrahim Oloriegbe to defeat him in the race going by the development of the last few days. While Oloriegbe has been using the Lagos axis of the media to highlight his candidacy without such corresponding following back home, Saraki has shown that he is still on ground and still control the majority of the voters through the dynasty many of whom have questioned the rationale behind the opposition style of wanting to get to power by deriding Saraki instead of highlighting their alternative(s) for the state.
While that narrative is going on, there are many PDP stalwarts who viewed the last round of rallies by PDP as vintage Saraki. To them, it would have been a political harakiri or suicide of sort to allow the APC go to the poll with the momentum of the president visit. But with this latest scenario, not only has that been put to check, the O tun ya slogan and school of thought have drowned the opposition’s lingo in the days leading to the election wining many convert who have hitherto sat on the fence or wanted to vote any other party but PDP or APC.
Analysis of the last PDP rally is necessary to drive some point home at this juncture. The PDP rally at Metro Square attracted mammoth crowd that surpass that of APC state rally and yet it was only a meeting with women groups and organisations in Kwara Central. As massive as that crowd was, a similar one was already waiting for him at the baseball field almost simultaneously from where Saraki headed immediately to Baboko to the waiting hands of another large crowd. These were aside the large number of youths from the four local government areas that made up Kwara central senatorial district that received him at the State Banquet Hall and attended the Stadium Complex where Davido rounded off the rally with a performance.
Ironically, the Ilorin West “mother of all rallies” as instructive as it were, was not the only avenue that Saraki demonstrated that he still commands love from the people who usually troupe out to catch a glimpse of him whenever he is in town. The other day in Offa, erroneously considered by some of his critics as the strong base of the opposition to the dynasty, Saraki literarily shut down the down as massive crowd came out to welcome him from the street all the way to the palace of the Olofa of Offa, Oba Muftau Gbadamasi Esuwoye II.
From the foregoing, the 2019 election many considered to be one of the toughest for Saraki may end up to be another crushing defeat for opposition elements at the end of the day. And as the electorate prepare to cast their vote on Saturday bearing any shift by INEC, it will be interesting to see how Saraki’s deal with Kwara North which offers the region the best in all ramifications in the present circumstance, and the new “inroads” into Kwara South the dynasty and the leadership of the party have made after the last By-Election, will play out at the end of the day, especially in the face of an opposition that seem to have little or no plans on how to respond to the agitations from these districts.
From the chairman of the party, Engr Kola Shittu, the momentum is growing daily as the clock continue to tick before Saturday. But on that day, he told National Pilot in a telephone chat on the issue, with Allah’s grace, it is going to be a sweet victory for PDP.
