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Saraki’s politics is anti-people, I can’t work with him – Suleiman

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You are the founding chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party in Kwara State. Why did you leave the party you laboured hard to build for the All Progressives Congress?

I am not only a founding father of the PDP in Kwara State, I am one of the founding fathers of the PDP at the national level, having started from G-18 to G-36 until it transformed to the PDP.

Therefore in Kwara State, I nurtured the PDP from the scratch. It is painful that I had to leave the house I laboured hard to build. I really need to do so with pains because I cannot stay in the same political party with Bukola Saraki. At the beginning, when we had three parties including the PDP, and the Alliance for Democracy.  I deliberately went to the PDP in order to avoid being in the same party with that dynasty when late Baba Olusola Saraki was alive. We (Olusola and I) had very good working relationship, we talked and so on but I told him (Olusola Saraki) that we cannot be in the same party because their own politics is not ideology-based, and it is not geared towards the improvement of the lives of the masses, therefore we cannot co-habit in the same party; that is why I went to the PDP.

After the old man died, his son stepped into his shoes. Because he was not a politician, he merely stepped into the shoes of his late father and inherited the existing structure but he does not know how to manage it. He reduces everybody to the level of a servant. Politics is not a master-servant relationship. Those of us who have something to offer can never play that type of politics. So basically, we are just different politically. Our thoughts are not the same; our ideas are not the same. We think of the masses, Bukola thinks of what he will acquire.

Bukola does not think of the people, he thinks about himself; all others are mere instruments for him to achieve his objectives, expand his political empire and political image. If you look at what is happening, why did he leave the PDP for the APC in 2014? It was not because former President Goodluck Jonathan was not performing; it was because he felt that he had not had enough recognition.

Under President Muhammadu Buhari, his defection is not based on differences of ideology, and it is not that the masses are suffering and the government should have initiated and implemented better policies;  it is about him.  That’s why we cannot be together.

He described the PDP as the worst party that existed and he left, moved everybody including the structures to the APC, later he formed New Peoples Democratic Party. Now he has formed the Reformed-APC and he has gone back to the PDP. Light and darkness can never dwell together. We are light and that is why we left the PDP.

Saraki has been the leader of the ruling elite in Kwara for about 15 years now, how do you assess the development of Kwara within his political leadership?

That is one of the reasons why we are opposed to him. I cannot point to anything that Bukola did in his eight years as Kwara State governor.  The current Governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, has not added any value. Youth unemployment is on the increase, people are on the streets.  A thinking government should know how to remove the youths from the streets by educating them, and empowering them with skills that would enable them to be self-reliant and even creators of job and wealth. On the contrary, the youths are being empowered with guns. So many young men now carry guns illegally and nobody’s life is safe. The young men are being trained to attack political opponents and when there are no political opponents to kill, they become armed robbers and terrorise the society.

For instance, the arrested gang leader of Offa banks robberies, simply known as AY, has NCE, B.ed and Master’s degrees. Do you think anybody who has that kind of qualification, would be carrying guns if he has something good he is doing? That is the level they have reduced us to in Kwara! That is what must be changed.



The Bukola Saraki’s administration claimed to have founded the Kwara State University, renovated the state secretariat, and built the Banquet Hall, Government House, the Diagnostic Centre, the International Aviation Centre, Ilorin and others. Why did you say that his government did nothing in eight years?

You talked about the university, the idea of KWASU was started by the late governor Mohammed Lawal, he had gone far with the project and a lot of money had gone into it, before the change of government and everybody was hopeful that the state was going to have a university. If Bukola had killed it, it would have been a political suicide. So, he had no option but to continue with the project. It is not his original idea.

You also talked about the College of Aviation, that is a white elephant project which has no direct bearing on the lives of the masses and it is an avenue to siphon money.

But he also started the Shonga farms?

Have you eaten anything from Shonga Farm? They denied the local farmers their land. Is Shonga Farm still alive? Do you not know it is another project to make money? They are using the Zimbabwean farmers; don’t we have farmers here who can be empowered, by giving them seedlings and other incentives to facilitate higher and better yield? It is one of the things that we have been saying.  In what way has Shonga Farm touched the lives of the people of Kwara?

I was the Chairman of the National Poverty Eradication Programme in Kwara State. We decided that the boys must have to be moved out of the streets. We identified good workshops and we attached the students to them. We paid trainers to train them for about six months and one year, and we paid the students some allowances to facilitate their transportation. We did not charge them. I know so many people today who have graduated from that scheme and who are doing well for themselves in their various areas of endeavours.
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