In what looks like a script straight from Hollywood, erstwhile men of power, united only as political traducers to Dr Bukola Saraki, former governor, Kwara State and Senate President, 8th Senate, are suddenly unraveling. The arrest, detection and ongoing interrogation of Ibrahim Magu, a rampaging bulldog in the hands of politicians and suspended acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC, appears to be the latest casualty in the list of Saraki’s traducers that have bitten the dust.
When in search for vengeance, goes a common refrain, prepare two graves; one for the enemy and the other for the seeker because the business of seeking retribution comes with ambivalent consequences. For men like Magu, Adams Oshiomole, disgraced and also suspended national chairman, All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu the national leader of the party, his associates in the Kwara branch of the party and many others still lurking in the fringes of power corridor, the afore said saying should have been taken to heart when they acted on the enmity, collectively nursed against Bukola Saraki.
In the last one week, the former EFCC boss has been served regular cocktails of his own medicine. While heading EFCC, decency and rule of law weren’t part of the rules of engagement when dealing with Saraki and other political opponents of the ruling party. They were subjected to open persecutions in the name of fighting corruption. Their homes were randomly raided by operatives of the anticorruption commission; rather than take them before the courts, they are subjected to blitzkrieg of media trials. Even when courts grant reprieve to defendants, the commission flouts them in a most brazen manner never seen or heard of in this clime.
Saraki’s only sin was putting a stamp on an official indictment on Magu when his name was forwarded by then Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, while his principal, Buhari was out of the country on sick leave. The 8th Senate, under Saraki, merely acted on a comprehensive dossier on Magu by the Department of State Services, DSS, which in summary, submitted that Magu was not fit to be in the commission in the first place as an employee, not to talk of heading it.
The senate consequently refused to confirm Magu as substantive chairman of the very sensitive commission. As a result, Magu’s EFCC became an official bloodhound unleashed on a sitting Senate President and even after the man completed his tenure.
But the last one week has witnessed a remarkable turnaround of fortune for the hunter and the hunted. Saraki has been out of office in the last one year. But nemesis’ long hands reached out from five years ago to pluck Magu off his exalted seat. The hunter is now the hunted over mostly same allegations which were tabled before Saraki’s 8th Senate.
As at the weekend, Magu was still in police custody after being plucked off the street and suspended from office by the president. A panel embedded in the presidency is currently unraveling sleazes allegedly perpetrated by the EFCC boss. There were just too many offences steeped in financial malfeasances alleged to be unaccounted for under Magu’s tenure.
But this is one odium the country would have spared itself had Saraki’s 8th Senate not be ignored as result of steady farragoes of propaganda dished out by political opponents in APC before Saraki was hounded out of the party. Like Magu, that intricate web of deceit has come down crumbling, claiming scalps of his erstwhile traducers.
When Godwin Obaseki, governor, Edo State, changed a street name in Auchi from that of ‘Adams Oshiomole’ to that of ‘DrBukola Saraki’, not many may have seen the hands of retributive justice in the matter. Obaseki did so upon crossing over from his former party, APC, to the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, upon which he hopes to contest the forthcoming Edo governorship election in September 19. Oshiomole, to the consternation of many, once openly boasted that his biggest achievement as chairman of APC was to wrest Kwara, Saraki’s stronghold, from the former senate president and also ensured that he never returned to the Senate. But the change of name is little compared to the political humiliation he has suffered in recent times. Obaseki is Oshiomole’s political godson. Like Magu, Oshiomole has been ignominiously relieved of his office as chairman, APC. He will go into the annals of history as the first national party chairman to be suspended by his ward for gross misconduct, affirmed to be so by the court and the president and national leaders of the party.
The apparent fall of Magu and Oshiomole may well signpost the decimation of a bigger web and webmaster quietly orchestrating Saraki’s political travails from Boudillion, Lagos. Even though not openly spoken about, few people wouldn’t know that Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the former governor, Lagos and national leader of the ruling APC, is the arch traducer of Saraki. In the last one week, too, few people wouldn’t know that Tinubu is the biggest loser in the change of fortune that has befallen Magu and Oshiomole, so far.
Magu, was an aide to Oba Rilwan Akiolu, paramount ruler of Lagos, while he was a Deputy Inspector General, DIG, of police. As king, he was installed at Tinubu’s behest while as governor of Lagos. The paramount ruler’s political views, more often than not, mirrors Tinubu’s. So, as the story goes, Magu was recommended to Tinubu as fitting for the head of EFCC by the traditional ruler. Quite instructively, Magu was sent to the Senate under Saraki for confirmation by vice president, Prof Yemi Osinbajo , another of Tinubu’s protégée, while in acting capacity for the president. Magu, say political observers, has served Tinubu well in using EFCC to hound political opponents of the former Lagos State governor, especially in the South or any perceived opponent in the party in a bid to emerge the most visible and credible political leader to vie for presidency in 2023.
Oshiomole is the other end of the prong. With Magu gone and Obsaeki decamping from APC in rebellion to his erstwhile godfather, Tinubu may have suffered his own comeuppance with the ouster of his choice party chairman. A national audience was stupefied after Tinubu, despite his not too subtle subterranean positioning to contest for presidency in 2023, openly denied ever nursing such ambition.
The downturn for Saraki’s opponent is however not restricted to the national scene. Men from his home front in Ilorin, like Ishaq Modibbo Kawu already had their turn. The disgraced former DG, National Broadcasting Corporation, NBC is under suspension and undergoing trial for alleged shady deals to the tune of N2.5 billion. Kawu was a trenchant critic of Saraki and one of the arrowheads of opposition in Kwara state.
His elevation to DG, NBC, was said to be at the behest of Tinubu, who had actively courted men of Kwara that were opponents of Saraki, like Kawu. But with Kawu’s dip in political fortune and ignominy, his mordant critique of Saraki has since dried up as he awaits his trial at the court over the N2.5 billion allegation.
At the local chapter of the ruling party in Kwara and indeed among his former acolytes turned political enemies, there hasn’t been respite, too.
That omnibus of Saraki opposition tagged ‘O to ge’ movement is already in complete disarray. Governor AbdulRahman Abdulrazaq, the principal beneficiary of the movement that removed Saraki has since disavowed of his erstwhile comrades. Here, again, Tinubu’s foothold in the state is seriously under threat. Bashiru Omolaja Bolarinwa, BOB, state party chairman is so in name only. The governor has consistently humiliated him with non-recognition of his office.
The same goes for his other colleagues in ‘opposition’ right in their own party. Akogun Iyiola, known for his trenchant opposition of Saraki, Lai Mohammed, Gbemisola Saraki and many others are also facing similar threat of political oblivion like their national leaders who had fought Saraki.
