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.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that 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.
“The people of Kwara have never had it right from the time the Saraki family decided not only to be king makers as custodians but as king in addition.
“Since then up-to-date, we at the grassroots have become the prisoners of the family – like chickens or sheep ready for rousting or for pepper soup at any time the election is approaching.
“It is only when election is approaching that they dangle carrots as empowerment for the long forgotten electorate, to woo them,” he said.
Aiyelabegan warned APC National Secretariat that the Saraki family have outlived their welcome.
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.
“Kwara people are never given the chance to make representations on matters that concerned them in government, either at the executive or legislative levels.
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.
The APC chieftain,however, cautioned President Muhammadu Buhari to be wary of those who were once followers of Bukola Saraki both in the state and at the national level who claimed to be in APC, yet loyal to Saraki.
“The National Chairman and the Secretariat should not make the mistake of the past by treating fake loyalists with gloved hands while the committed ones were neglected.”
Aiyelabegan declared that the people of the state could no longer bear the deceptios of the Senate president and the Governor of the state, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed.
“These deceptions are enough! No road, poor educational system, poor health system, no water, agriculture is nil, no salaries for some categories of workers for months.
“Pensioners are denied of their entitlements. Only elephant projects where government money can be stolen. Nothing is working in Kwara.” (NAN)