Whatever Bukola Saraki represents in Kwara is over – Dara

John Dara, a prominent politician and gubernatorial aspirant in Kwara state, has been in disagreement with the old order now symbolized by the former governor and heir to the Oloye Saraki hegemony, Senator Bukola Saraki. Now that the Oloye is no more, Dara tells EMEKA NZE that Bukola has squandered the leadership he inherited from the father and is therefore disconnected from the people of the state

As a PDP chieftain from Kwara state, it seems that your job to take over the state is now made easy as those purportedly holding the state by the jugular have moved to the opposition by their defection. How easy is it for you to retain the state as a PDP State this year?
Well, at the personal level, I see the problem as simpler than most people outside Kwara state tend to perceive it. All along the old order was sustained by external interest and influence. There were people who saw Oloye Saraki as an agent of  their own interest and they always ensured that everything worked for him- Police, INEC, funding- were mobilized just for him. Even when the people voted against him, the results usually did not reflect the real voting. So it is a myth created and sustained by forces outside Kwara State. Now Bukola inherited that but because he didn’t understand how the myth came about, he didn’t understand the power that sustained the myth, he decided to fight the very power that created the myth. So for us, the overwhelming majority of the people of Kwara state the change has already come even before the elections. Bukola and whatever he represents is over. The good news is that he has saved the name of Oloye Saraki by alienating the sister because now, the sister can help to serve what is left of that legacy within the ruling party but wherever Bukola is going, he is a goner.

At what point did the people of the state discover that external forces that propelled the Oloye for their own interests?
For people like me, I have a history of being a consistent and an implacable anti-Saraki because as a young man, I saw when Kwara state was created. We were unarguably the leading state in the whole of northern Nigeria. We were the best of the best among the administrators of Northern Nigeria; we were the best of the best of the academicians of Northern Nigeria and suddenly under this so called leadership, I saw everything declined and reduced to one-man-show. I saw our public service in Kwara state go down. I saw the sense of inclusiveness that made us to call Kwara state the State of Harmony, I saw it destroyed. So for me, I saw beyond political opportunism of saying, “Oh, I go to Oloye, endorse me for one job or the other.” I rejected that even when the old man invited me to join; I declined because I do not believe that he was really committed to politics of development. He was more into politics of patronage and my obsession is about rapid development not only of Kwara state but of Nigeria. And so I had always opposed what that system represented. So in opposing it, one had to understand its staying power and I knew it was this external force that was already upholding it. Already a myth was created “oh unless somebody come from one part of Kwara state he cannot be the governor.” That’s a lot of rubbish, it’s just nonsense. Again it is this external force. They are panicking because Kwara state used to be easy and predictable; it was in safe hands. They had a garrison commander who made Kwara go the way they wanted it to go. Now that the garrison commander is not there, they are not sure of the future; they are now trying to manufacture another myth saying, “unless somebody is of a particular religion or from a particular local government, it’s all nonsense. Any charismatic, forward-looking aspirant from any part of Kwara state irrespective of birth or religion or economic class, who has the interest of the masses at heart and can connect with the masses, will emerge as the next leader. The beauty of this process of change is that democracy is now beginning to work. If you look at the last PDP Congresses, it was keenly contested. In contrast when APC held their congress and as usual it’s consensus, consensus. In other words Bukola Saraki sat in a corner, compiled a list, announced it and nobody is challenging it and they said that’s consensus. Whereas in PDP, everything was contested and when it was all over we mended fences and embraced one another. That is what some of us are bringing in Kwara state. That’s the change that is inevitable –democracy, development and the spirit of excellence.

It seems that the Saraki hegemony is still reigning supreme in Kwara state. I say this because it seems that two out of the three zones, if not all the three are still being controlled Bukola Saraki. This is evident when Bukola decamped to the APC, and the majority of lawmakers at the state and national level immediately followed suit. What is your take on this?
Let me first of all tell you, Bukola Saraki is not the same as Oloye Saraki because Oloye Saraki’s legacy is in both PDP and APC. I think it is no longer relevant for anybody to be talking of Oloye Saraki. The old man has played his own part; he has left the stage. Now there are two of his children who are active in politics- one is in APC and the other is PDP. The one is APC Bukola seems to all of us in Kwara state as the one who inherited the power and has also mismanaged it. In contrast, Gbemi is saying, “look my brother is going to give my father a bad name the way he going. I am going to save it. She remained with the ruling party and is still relevant, still playing a positive role in the party. In contrast to Bukola, she is now forced to be a team player and it is working well for her and the group that won in the state congress she was part of the team. So your assertion that Saraki is popular in one part, it’s not popular in one, the question is, which Saraki are you talking about? If you are talking of Bukola Saraki, Bukola Saraki will lose every local government in the next election, I guarantee you that. He is the most heated figure in Kwara state today. His arrogance, his corruption, his greed knows no bound. Nobody in his right mind cares a hoot about what he represents. Now the truth is that the state Assembly Members who were said to have decamped, one, they were induced and in any case, they were afraid. After all, they were handpicked by the so called system; they were handpicked and put there. So the system is now saying follow me and two of them refused to go and the rest followed. The people who followed each of them were paid a handsome amount of money. If they were willing, why were they being paid, why were they being induced? Now the court has said they would lose their seats. Many of them are talking to us that it’s a mistake; they want to come back. So there is no reflection of the reality on ground. A few elected officials who think they owed their position to Bukola Saraki may be intimidated by him but the electorate who are fed up with his lifestyle, with his style of leadership, who have been yearning for change think this is a great opportunity to reposition Kwara state, to remove the fear, to remove the shame, to remove the reproach of being a Kwara person under one individual or one family. Today any member of that family can become part of the democratic process and the person is welcomed. We have no hatred for any individual. This thing is too big for that but those of us who have being champions of democracy, champions of rapid development feel that the time for that has come and if Bukola want to be part of it in future he is welcome to join. But for now the battle line seems to be clearly drawn. He is living in the past and thinking that it is business as usual. The forces of change have passed onto the PDP and they are unstoppable.

Where will you see yourself in this election year, 2015? Are you in the contest for the governorship seat?
I contested against Bukola Saraki in 2002/2003. On the eve of the primaries Bukola had 25 delegates; I had 107 delegates out of the 156. Some other aspirants had the rest. But the system then -the external forces I mentioned insisted that it had to be Bukola. That’s why I laugh when I hear Alhaji Atiku talking about democracy. Most of the problems of PDP were caused by Atiku’s overbearing control of the party, imposing candidates all over the country. Now that era is over. Under President Goodluck Jonathan we now have fresh air of democracy in PDP. Nobody is being imposed; people came from Ekiti and said, “Fayose is not good; he’s bad. Don’t do business with him.” Jonathan said to them, “Do your primaries, whoever wins is the candidate.” Unfortunately for those who were talking about Fayose in their bow-ties and in the comfort of their rooms, they lost out. But if it were in the old order, they would have manipulated it and imposed somebody else. Jonathan has refrained from that and so anybody who wants to be governor of Kwara state will have to work hard, campaign hard like I did in the past and win. This time around, I am throwing my hat in the ring again; it will be my pleasure to take on any rival and I believe I am going to win by a wide margin.