Saraki: Only a queerer people keeps falling for amala politics

By SEGUN ELIJAH

APART from omerta, the mafia oath of silence every politician swears to, Sen. President Bukola Saraki has taken six more in the last 14 of his 53 years on earth. And, if there was no hurry to head home to Kwara where his late father Sola was a lord back then, Saraki probably took the Hippocratic Oath, too, at the London School of Medicine and Dentistry in 1987.

So he is supposed to have a heart. As a doc, that is.

And as a Twitter-generation pol, Saraki, you can say, has a heart of gold.
It really takes a kind soul like him to keep over two million people sweet in a fiefdom for 12 years. In spite of the #PanamaPapers muck-slinging and the Code of Conduct Bureau kicking up a stink—persecuting this Caesar of a senator—the Kwara people ain’t batting an eyelid.

They can’t. Or else they’ll be biting the fingers that have been feeding them. Saraki obviously knows the way to his people’s heart: their throats. And these Afonja people love food. Entertainment, baby-making, the 3 R’s, and, even, health are the last things on their laundry list. Saraki covered all that for them then.

The State Bureau of Statistics said Kwarans spend 67 percent of their earnings—from mom-and-pop businesses and farming—on pasta, canned grub, and loads of carbs. Plus, lots of condoms, IUDs, and other tools couples use for keeping those tiny feet from gelling.

The state also scored a first in working the Malthusian theory. According to the bureau, Kawara’s fertility is low, and so is its dependency ratio, the lowest across the north central. So the population is mainly youth, men and women—all breadwinners, all happy. Couples in Kwara, making about half of the population, have made it past the seven-year itch: just 2.8 percent have hit the rock.

ALSO SEE: How Saraki collected salary, pension from Kwara govt. for years — Witness

According to the bureau, Kwara, under Saraki—and even under his poodle Gov. Abdufatah Ahmed there now—was first among its equals (except Abuja) in the north central on many development indices. Food first, you know. Then you can talk about the leaping Internally Generated Revenue: from M7.2 billion in 2010 to about N14 billion in 2013. The state truly bursts with energy. A working population that swallows all the starch it needs can toil like Trojans.

They have ex-Gov. Bukola to thank for all the eats available: the Bukky rice (from his farm where he said he made all the millions while he was governor); the amala banquet he gives them every Friday; and the Shonghai farm. Living from hand to mouth—that’s all.

Saving is a dirty word in Kwara. And they have been spared all that hassle so they can hunker down around their bowls of amala and ewedu. The Sarakis have been doing all the saving for them—in Panama, the UK, the British Virgin Islands, and others. The CCB witness Joseph Wetkas even said Bukola kept some $3.4 million of the Kwara money in his America Express Card. More loads of his greenbacks are also sitting coolly in HSBC vaults.

ALSO SEE: CCT: Justice Umar over-rules Saraki, orders trial to begin

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As Kwara’s servant-chief then, Saraki went to all the trouble investing lots of the money buying up edifices. From Abuja to London. It was part of his service—mandate—to the people.

For all the Kwarans care, Saraki could be the only signatory to those accounts, his wife Toyin the biggest shareholders in those Panama shell companies. And the Saraki dynasty could do that for all eternity. What does it matter when the citizens have got enough flour and corned-beef to gorge on?

That’s what you enjoy as a dough-sharing oloye who knows how to fatten yout sheep. They won’t bleat when you fleece them, you bet.

And it will always be good—palatable—in Kwara.