27th April, 2011
Dr. Olusola Saraki, the godfather of politics in Kwara State has been demystified by his son, Bukola whose candidate, Alhaji Abdu Fatah Ahmed of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was declared winner of the governorship election in Kwara State today.
Ahmed, a former commissioner of finance in the state, polled 254,969 votes to beat his closest rival, Mohammed Dele Belgore of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, who scored 152,580 votes.
Senator Gbemisola Saraki of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria, ACPN, came a distant third, polling 72,456 votes. ACPN was Saraki senior’s party on whose platform he asked his daughter to run for the governorship election. Her loss effectively ends Olusola Saraki’s iron grip on politics in the state as he called the shots for several decades.
According to the result announced by the Returning Officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in the state, Professor Rasheed Aderinoye, the PDP also won 22 out of the 24 state House of Assembly seats, leaving the remaining two for the ACN.
From all indications, the emergence of Ahmed as the next governor of the state of harmony and the routing of opposition parties in both the National Assembly and presidential elections by the PDP in the state has confirmed Governor Bukola Saraki as the new political leader of the state.
Governor Saraki had championed the rotation of the state governorship seat which eventually earned Ahmed from Kwara South Senatorial District the gubernatorial ticket of the PDP, candidates from Kwara Central Senatorial district having been in the saddle in the past 12 years.
Similarly, the outcome of the governorship election in the state might have brought to an end the robust political career of the Second Republic Senate Leader, Dr Olusola Saraki who has had a firm grip on the political affairs of the state in the last 47 years.
This is because the elder Saraki’s sponsored ACPN failed spectacularly in the just concluded general elections. The party neither won a seat in the National Assembly elections nor a seat in the 24-member state House of Assembly.
By Stephen Oni/Ilorin