When the politics of emancipation wines and the politics of slavery and leverage dines__ the people of , Kwara; seems not to have lagged behind in this change revolution.
The good people of the state employs the slang “otoge” to express their outbursts that they have woken up from their slumber and they are up to making decisions on who to paddle the affairs of their state by themselves
The pervasive slang “Otoge” which is literary means “Enough is Enough” can be contextually interpreted into two terms: Freedom from the ‘Godfatheristic’ and ‘Crynonystic’ Dynasty of Saraki or freedom from Suffering, Slavery and other travails baffling the state as everybody could say same thing and mean different thing.
If not because of troublesome Ibrahim Labaika who named the missile as “Otoge” in one of his songs, the man who is well-known for criticizing Sai Bukky with his humorous musical hard lines—The slang had been in existence since the time when the eyes of Kwarans were still dark and dimmed.
In fact, a child who didn’t witness a story would surely meet the narration, Kwarans have been striving persistently to emancipate from the leveraging Godfatherism of Saraki since 2003 when Saraki father nominated his son Bukola Saraki as the Governorship candidate against ‘Omoladerin’ Muhammad Lawal
Saraki who’s a cunning politician who was also an expert in exploiting the Achilles of Heel of his opponent to strike them; used the pretext of the fact that, Lawal was from Idiape (descendants of Afonja, who had in the olden days embattled the descendant of the current Emir and, it’s based on this it was believed that he might wage a sacrilegious war against the sacred seat of Sheik Alimi__Saraki Father used this chink to defeat Lawal as Ilorin which is the most populated area and major determinants of Governorship position can never trade anything with the sacred Sheikh Alimi’s caliphate and anybody who his descendants had issues with this caliphate is automatically the enemy of the emir and enemy of emir is the enemy of entire Ilorites—this paved a way for the heir of Abubakar Saraki to clinch the governorship position in 2003.
Who Bukola Saraki exhausted his maximum two terms__Saraki father aimed at using Gbemisola, who was not in good term with Bukola Saraki as the next governor, after Gbemisola had served as a lawmaker since 1990s, as Senator and Members of House of Rep; even though his achievements seemed to not expose to Kwarans since she didn’t make it to be a Governor.
Bukola Saraki due to his frictional relationship with his sister and his hegemonial willingness to surpass his father and become the major political determinant saw nothing bad in defying his father’s order, he chose another candidate contrary to his father’s choice and this made his enraged father to abscond from the pdp—the party which he strived for before it made its root stood firmly in Kwara to ACPN.
Despite the fact that Saraki’s Father insisted on Gbemisola as his choice whom he campaigned for with all his overwhelming power and influence___Bukola sustained interest of Ilorites more than his father.
Ilorin who’s very fast at interpreting a decision came up with a “Slang Ilorin Ofe Ilorin ogo ki obinrin ma je Olori wa”in other words it means that Ilorin expressed their high detestation against emerging a female as the Governor. Bukola Saraki slammed his father and his nominee became the Governor of KWARA and that his tremendous achievements got him the power of Political God-father of KWARA who selected anybody whom he deemed fit for any political positions in Kwara.
The quest for enough is enough was not that audible through out the Saraki tenure as the Governor, until the arrival of Dele Belgore in 2011, who contested under ACN and had an upper hand in Kwara Central, but the strong and ubiquitous influence of Saraki around the edges of KWARA made him a-no-match for Fatai Ahmed, the current Governor of Kwara State
The dynasty of Saraki would have also hit the rock in 2015, when the likes of Oba Abdulraheem, Dele Belgore,Hakeem Lawal stood as a freedom fighter for the Kwarans, though it’s not about having any definite plan for Kwarans but the Crusade of putting-end-to-saraki-dynasty was all the reasons why the factions of frustrated Kwarans admired them
The monarchs above had a high tendency of defeating Ahmed in his second term bid that time but it came as a surprise that time when Simon Ajibola who’s a black sheep to Kwarans sprang from nowhere and beat the bright Dele Belgore and Oba Abu to clinch the Governorship Ticket of PDP then.
It was believed that his emergence had a secret intriguing hand of Saraki as he had allegedly launched some moles and other political orchestrations in PDP before he left, so as to nominate a candidate who’s not incompetent enough to contend with his Candidate, Ahmed.
Just like the way Saraki inherits it from his father__the politics of striking the counterpart at their weakest point.
Simon could have had everything it took to win so far average Kwarans were just after unseating Saraki, but Ilorin and its vicinity the major determinants, being a Muslim dominated area, Saraki used this to paint Simon a depleting colour to Kwarans and this seems a little bit related to the tactics which his father used in 2003 to defeat Lawal__the fact that Ilorin is too conservative about Religion though another ipso factor that also played a tremendous role Was the affiliation of Saraki with Sacrosantic BUHARI at APC
In 2019, some former accomplises of Saraki like Mashood Mustapha and Lukman Mustapha joined the cesspit of ‘Otoges’ having loggerhead with their boss, they said its because of Kwarans that they defected to the team.
Having foreseen the victory, Supporters of Otoge had earlier warned the PDP party to filtrate the moles of Saraki out of the party and came up with good candidates, though it’s expected that some popular contenders like Oba Abdulraheem, Lukman Mustopha, Hakeem Lawal and co would have been emerged but stunningly it was Abdulrasaq Abdulrahman who did not exonerate from being a mole of Saraki that was emerged.
This could have been a grave mistake by Otoge Team but Abdulrahman did all he could to prove his unaffiliation with Saraki and there is every indication that what attracted audience for him was that, the time when he was emerged was when Kwarans were just after kicking Saraki out without caring about the competence of who to replace him
What also triggered the grievances of Kwarans in 2019 was the travail that the civil servants and others Kwarans passed through when Nigerian stumbled into the pathetic ocean of recession in 2015 at the inception of APC regime and the Governor could not pay the salaries of workers and the terrific hand of hunger that gripped the civil servants and others escalated the grievances of Kwarans to insist on changing the stirrer that drives the affair of the state__even though virtually every state in Nigeria suffered from this lamentable excruciating horrific experience,Kwarans saw this as no excuse and heaped the whole blame on Mr Saraki
I’m neither a Sarakite nor an impudent child of Otoge team, but taking the jamboree of Otoge aside, I challenge every kwaran and the group of Otoge to cite one quality that Abdulrahman of APC possesses which makes him better than Atunwa of PDP.
An adage says a familiar evil is better than an anonymous angel, if the Kwarans insist on chasing Saraki out of the seat, they must ready to suffer a heavy travail which every group who clamours for change without any direction suffers, as after they kick Saraki out, regret statement like “Omobu na ni ojo tie” means “Bad child also has his own usefulness” may be the nemesis.
The people of Libya are still suffering of compromisingly chase Gadaffi out up till today, they are yet to overcome their difficulties.
In spite of the fact that, Saraki and his cabal have not done well for Kwarans, something intriguing is hiding beneath the slang Otoge which is different from Good Governance Motive___Malice and Envy for the Saraki.
Unlike previous years, Kwarans have understood how to collect money yet still vote for their choice, those “MAMA” that used to go to that exotic house to collect money have been cautioned by their children, the civil servants have tasted what poverty is after facing the many years travail of no salary___do these signal a litmus tests to the extinction of Saraki dynasty?
The bone of contention this time around is that, Kwarans are tired of seeing Sai Bukky on the throne everyday and they want to see new face at all cost because had it been they really want freedom from Godfatherism; I don’t think they have found a better option, the emergence of Abdulrahman was granted by Baba Bola Tinubu, Mr Lie I mean Lai Mohammed and other eminent monarchs at APC — the duo would surely have influence on the administration of Abdulrahman.
To cap it all, not everybody in the Otoge Team really wishes good governance for Kwarans, some malicious people who envy the leadership throne of Saraki also disguise as a freedom fighter to suck their own milk from kwara___it is on this note I want to leave a question in the conscience of the good people of kwara, Is Otoge really a clamour for good governance?