Kwara PDP: When Suspicion Becomes A Strategy To Disqualify Others – By Bashir Akanbi
2019 is knocking on the door, and like Late Gen. Mamman Vatsa would say, the political soldiers are ‘back again at the war gate’. As usual, the political war, like the conventional one, will spring up a lot of ‘soldiers’, many of these would be machineries look for fortune and cheap, even if temporary, fame. The case of the newly birthed weak-livered BASHAR AKANBI – a pseudo name in the hands  of certain PDP chieftains to defame and disenfranchise fellow political  jobbers in Kwara PDP.
When I read an article captioned, ‘KWARA 2019: MM, OLODODO, ALUKO, OTHERS HIJACK PDP STRUCTURE FOR SARAKI’ by one faceless  Bashar Akanbi, all I could see is the local PDP in Kwara employing a preemptive strategy which was basically hinged on fear and suspicion. And while one would like to respect the age of some of the PDP leaders in Kwara State, the issues they focused on many times and even those they engage to push those issues to the public often leave much to be desired. No doubt, the politics most of them are familiar with is pedestrian at best.
While the team engaged by the fickle would be gladiators in Kwara PDP strove to create a public alert, it only succeeded, in the article in question, in unraveling the weakness and vulnerability of a party that loves to pride itself as the only viable opposition in Kwara. The article achieved the embarrassing objective of making a public nuisance of Kwara PDP by admitting that the leader of another party, in this case Dr. Bukola Saraki, can actually sit down in his house and take over the whole structure of their so-called impenetrable party. Is Kwara PDP this cheaply porous and dimensionless?
While the article rehearsed the now popular story of Hon. Moshood Mustapha (MM) moving to the PDP and the conspiratorial roles being played by some of its leaders like Alhaji Yinka Aluko, Rasaq Lawal, Alh. Ganiyu Cook Olododo, Architect Lola Ashiru, Barr. Kunle Sulyman, Alh. Atanda Zoro; what the writer failed to tell Kwarans is what their fate has always been and would be if virtually all it’s frontline members are ‘merchant’ politicians who are available for sale in the most shameless and ridiculous manner painted in the article. This is all every discerning minds need to investigate to unravel the major reason for not only that write up but the previous  watery pieces by the writer.
The truth is, the writers of the article in question, for I know for a fact that the writeup was authored by a group of smart guys already making money out of the emerging political scenario in Kwara; only seek to clear way for the principal they work for. While the article was positioned as if it was alerting the public to a brewing conspiracy against the party, the truth is that the article was not even against Bukola Saraki or APC; it was sponsored by one of the would be PDP gubernatorial hopefuls – a political baby with neither structure nor investment in the party, to paint almost all the possible challengers in the party in bad light. That article merely brought to the fore the internal ‘pull him down’ game presently ongoing within the Kwara PDP. A situation I consider unfair to those who have been attending  meetings, boxing and wrestling themselves before, during and after 2015.
The writers of the article mentioned that Dr. Bukola Saraki used his sister, Sen. Gbemisola Saraki to scatter PDP in the 2015 elections. But what they failed to tell the public is that the same Sen. Gbemisola that was ‘sponsored’ repeatedly warned them in the several meetings they held even before their primaries that they cannot win against her brother with the way they were being suspicious of each other and publicly antagonising themselves. Eventually when the ‘Jonathan largesse’ arrived, they shared it amongst themselves, believing since they can’t win, better to share the money despite the highest any of them who vied for the PDP ticket in 2015 donated to PDP was not more than 10 million naira. And these are the same set of people who wanted to prosecute a statewide election to upstage a ruling party.
The PDP albatross have always been and would always be the greed and selfishness of its leaders. I confirmed reliably that the fight between Dr. Bukola Saraki and his sister, Sen. Gbemisola is not a fluke. Leading individuals have confirmed this and even tried to mediate between the two. Late Pa. Ogunshola, before his death, expressed his frustration over his inability to reconcile the two (Bukola and Gbemi). Chief Edwin Clark sometime last year published an open letter in Vanguard appealing to Sen. Saraki to end the fight between him and his sister. But it is only PDP who still continues to believe its own lies. The truth PDP would never tell its followers is that no one was planted in their midst in 2015, it was their individual ambitions and zeal to enrich personal pockets which went on overdrive and beclouded their sense of judgement that eventually resulted in their failure at the polls. Of course, discerning Kwarans are aware that their unceasing tales fabrication on radio and sponsored social media platforms to blackmail the Senate President and Kwara state government aren’t about Kwarans but their personal greed and desperation for power.
They are back again with their defeatist excuses as captured in that ‘alarm’ article. All over the world, parties are happy to welcome more members to swell their rank as they prepare for a major election. But not Kwara PDP, a party whose members can’t even sincerely organize their internal affairs. Even a Judas himself would cross-carpet to the party, if Kwara PDP is such a serious party that has its own rules of engagement; it would always pin down any divisive strategy. But a perpetual failure always find others to blame, and this is exactly the case with the Kwara PDP. Kwara PDP will eventually fail again in 2019 with this their obvious depiction of political inexperience; it however,  won’t be because Sen. Bukola Saraki planted anybody in their midst, it would be because they are never sincere and never serious in their ways but hoodwink  the public with their nonsensical  freedom. Suspicion and deceit are not strategies that deliver victory often, and Kwara PDP must learn this truth or keep falling at Saraki’s feet.
Saraki remains my leader because  he is far humane than all his political adversaries at home front and beyond.
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I remain the original BASHIR AKANBI, a proud student of Saraki school of political thoughts.
