Senate President Bukola Saraki, has described his All Progressives Congress (APC) senatorial challenger for Kwara Central Senatorial District, Dr. Ibrahim Oloriegbe, as a seasonal politician without content and capacity to upstage him in the February 16 National Assembly election.
Oloriegbe had, while addressing a press conference in Lagos, decried the socio-economic situation of Kwara State, stressing that the Ilorin Emirate had resolved that Oto oge (enough is enough) to Saraki’s dynasty politics of impoverishment and decided to settle for a new leadership that honors the people’s culture and values.
But reacting to claims by the APC candidate that he is finished politically, Saraki said Oloriegbe is a satellite politician that visits home only at the approach of elections, stressing that as a factional candidate, “Oloriegbe’s aspiration is at variance with the legitimate expectations of the district.”
In a statement by his media aide, Yusuf Olaniyonu, Saraki said: “Oloriegbe is not a candidate in the senatorial election; rather, he is the candidate of a faction in the APC, which the court, in a subsisting and unchallenged judgment, rejected.
“Oloriegbe belongs to a group of people known in Kwara State as seasonal or visiting politicians. The people do not see them. They don’t relate with the people. They don’t help the people and their community until six months to election when they move in noxious money and they start printing posters. “They have done this every election period. His present noise as well as that of others is not different from what they have been doing since 2003. The result will also not be different.”
While recalling that his father, the late Dr. Olusola Saraki, sponsored Oloriegbe to the state House of Assembly, the senate president noted that Oloriegbe’s press conference was to divert attention “after the effects of the violence unleashed on the Ilorin people by their thugs were roundly condemned and the people’s refusal to be deterred.”
“They created a groundswell of noise, which will create panic and help their rigging plans for the elections. After all, it is known that you cannot rig where you are not popular. Kwara Central will not vote for seasonal politicians. When they lose this election, they will return to Abuja, Lagos and come back in 2023. Kwara people have coined a counter-slogan against them, called O Tun Ya, meaning, let us do it again.”
