News
Senate President Bukola Saraki has purchased the presidential nomination form of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP).
The form was obtained on his behalf by Mohammed Wakil, director-general of the Saraki Presidential Campaign Organisation.
Olu Onemola, special assistant on new media to the senate president, disclosed this in a tweet on Friday.
“This afternoon, the Director-General of the Saraki Presidential Campaign Organization, Hon. Mohammed Wakil, obtained the Presidential Nomination and Expression of Interest forms from the PDP Headquarters on behalf of Presidential Aspirant, Sen. (Dr.) Abubakar Bukola Saraki,” he tweeted.
Saraki bought the form less than 24 hours after Aminu Tambuwal, governor of Sokoto state, purchased his.
Tambuwal had told reporters that he was confident that the party leaders would conduct a credible primary if the aspirants did not agree on a consensus candidate.
“I can’t say there is no need for consensus; it is part of democratic process. If there is a possibility of it, why not? If it is not possible, then, we all go for the primary,” he had said.
“But I believe that PDP of today is capable of organizing free, fair, credible and transparent primaries.”
Meanwhile, the people of Ajikobi Ward in Ilorin West Local Government Area of Kwara said they were tired of the Saraki dynasty and had resolved to reject him or anybody he put forward for election in the state.
A community leader in Ajikobi, Alhaji Omar Aiyelabegan, who addressed journalists on Friday at his family compound in Ilorin, declared that nobody would succumb to Saraki’s dictate again.
“We have our independent mind, even my children have the right to belong to where it will benefit them, we are tired of Bukola Saraki,” he said.
Aiyelabegan, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara said the Senate President never got the people’s mandate to be their leader.
Ajikobi Ward is also the Senate President’s ward while Aiyelabegan’s and Agbaji compound, the family house of Sen. Saraki are very close to each other.
Aiyelabegan said the people chose to be silent at the self-imposed leadership of the Saraki family.
He lamented that the Saraki family and indeed, the Senate President had never reciprocated it with meaningful physical development in Agbaji and its environs.
He declared that the Senate president no longer had the goodwill to sell the people of Kwara again, as usual, to the highest political party bidders as far as the votes of Kwara people were concerned.
According to him, the people of Kwara State have spoken loudly during the last local government elections when Saraki’s candidates lost woefully and even at the Senate President’s voting booth in Agbaji.
Saraki declared his intention to contest the 2019 presidential election on Thursday.