Here Is Why We Are Wired To Believe Saraki Cannot Stop What’s Coming in Kwara – Ali Faagba

In 1346, The Bubonic plague, also known as Black Death, terrorised most of the world. It started in China and soon spread across the Mediterranean and the Europe. It was reported that wherever the plague hit, it wiped away half the population. In England, King Edward III asked the bishop of Canterburry to organize prayers, and many bishops wrote letters for priests to read in church to help people cope with what’s about to hit them. It did no good. The plague hit and quickly wiped out about half the English population.

The aftermath was that slaves and labourers who were at the bottom of societal stratum knew there weren’t enough slaves to work for the elite, so they demanded a raise in wages. Weary of the danger engulfing the elite class, the king issued a decree which was meant to enforce the normal wage on the slaves, and ensured that failure to comply attracts imprisonment. It was only a matter of time before these ordinary men rose up in rebellion and captured most of London. Although they were ultimately defeated, the law that wanted to hold them under cheap labour did not hold any longer. Such uprising formed the trajectory of the prosperous England which we all know today.

The world has a repeating story of few elite holding to power at the detriment of the few, but when it’s time for the many (Ordinary people) to stop fearing the few (Elite), all wisdom and ingenuity of elite become unavailing.

Such scenario played out in 2015 against the seating government of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, and it’s happening in Kwara in 2019. I know what you are thinking now “O young man, you don’t know this,” but yes, I do and by the time you are done reading this piece, you, too, will know this.

Should we start to take a look?

The power that backed Saraki’s restoration of 2015 was not a power of his goodwill, about 90 percent of that profit was made by leaning on Buhari’s sterling reputation and the rest 10 percent was the result of peoples’ total disinterest in PDP. At the national level the general outcry was against the then incumbent Federal Government while in Kwara, people were completely tired of the self-serving style of leadership. But the clout settled in favour of Saraki because the viability of opposition strength was undermined by poor timing. Today, is the opposition still in the wrong timing?

The answer is absolute NO. The pendulum of favour has swung from the status quo, thanks to a ripe democracy and wide sensitization of the people about the power of voting. Just some weeks back, the opposition in the state unconsciously displayed its might during its primary elections when it adopted direct primaries as against the expected indirect primaries. The nooks and crannies of our state were filled with the gathering of card carrying members of APC, all vying to ensure the best man wins. The look of it strikingly appears like a general election.

You see, regardless of what crisis APC Kwara may have on the surface, the power fuelling them towards 2019 is not of a narrow ruling elite. It is that of a citizenry ready to take the responsibility of how they are governed. Just the other day, a conversation ensued between me and the “okada rider that was taking me home from work, when I jovially asked him how prepared he was to vote in PDP, he replied “why are you cursing me?” I’ve engaged in tens of this kind of talk across the state and the responses are the same.

My aim is not to contribute to a stereotype. We live in a country that does very little of public survey but that number of registered voters in Kwara state is unprecedented. At every gathering of voters’ registration, we hear the same kind of talk and we perceive the same kind of feeling — Kwarans are angry and they are angry at the way things are. Put simply, they are angry with Saraki and anything attached to it.

To make matters worse, the PDP gubernatorial aspirant, who is currently serving the Federal House of Rep., started some road rehabilitation projects in his constituency after he emerged the flagbearer. He unintentionally admitted to his people that he knew something was wrong all this while, he wasn’t just interested in doing anything about it. Such is an unintended admission of failure.

But that is not the greatest undoing of Saraki’s politics. He practiced the politics of vote-buying for years. He failed to enlighten the people about the evil of selling their votes in order to intimidate the less richer men who may want to compete with him. He enjoyed keeping his people in poverty, coming back to them with a few pennies every electioneering period then going back to forgetting they ever existed. The wheel continued until the recent worrisome discovery of Kwarans that although money can be taken from a politician, voting for him is still not sacrosanct.

This is what I consider the greatest undoing of the man. People are enlightened, and an opposition candidate happens to be a man that can not only match him, but can also overpower him money to money, background to background and intellect to intellect. When the 70 percent of these voters are done voting against him, the rest unassured 30 percent will be bought over by the man who has enough to buy Saraki himself over if care is not taken.

Here is just a tip of the iceberg about why we are wired to believe Saraki cannot stop what is coming in Kwara in 2019.

Ali Faagba is a content marketer, digital marketer and freelance writer. He’s a columnist at Entrepreneur, Thrive Global and other international media outlets. He can be contacted at alifaagba21@gmail.com