Olubukola Saraki is a ‘Thief’

By Joseph Edgar…

The beauty of democracy is choice. The freedom to choose even the road side drunk as your candidate, but thankfully I have the clear presence of mind not to look towards the drunk for my choice. I have said this a countless times, that the Senate President has in my mind’s eye better positioned himself as the most credible candidate in the jungle of misfits who are getting ready to throw up their leprous hands to be counted.

The Supreme Court’s decision has more than verified his stature in my mind as one of the most eligible Nigerians for this position. Look, we are a country of emotional laggards. A country where public discourse is laced with half-truths, emotional outburst and semi literate banter. It is even quite surprising that even those who pretend to have pseudo-intellectual leanings lace their arguments with vague and shallow positions which fall flat in the face of fact based scrutiny.

So what we keep hearing is, Saraki is corrupt, Saraki is a thief, aghhhh Nigeria will be finished if Saraki ever emerges, he will steal us dry and then when you try to subject all these rants to objective and rigorous fact check, they fall in the gutter where they truly belong. So, is Saraki any more of a thief than what we are seeing today? Is Saraki anymore of a forger than what we are seeing today? Those who control the resources of whole States and dictate to the Governor who and what gets what in a common wealth remain saintly and lead the conversation against corruption. The ineffective ones, who stare as his aides and are looting us dry but still parade themselves as personally incorruptible, remain heroes of our democracy.

Some analysts are even now doubting the veracity of the Supreme Court ruling, saying the prosecution did a shoddy job. How that affects the ruling is really my concern. The court will obviously rule on the evidence and documents they are presented with and even the President has come out to say that this ruling strengthens his faith in the Nigerian judiciary.

Read also: Saraki proves odds of winning against corruption

All these boil down to the media, its control and who has better access. The war is being fought in the media, simply because whoever controls the media controls the narrative and thought process of millions of barely literate arm-chair political jingoists. For a lot of people, Saraki will not amount to nothing but a forger, a thief and an armed robber. Yet the man is scaling all hurdles, judicial or otherwise and remaining a major factor on the national stage. Hurdles his opponents will fall flat out if thrown their way.

It is really up to us as Nigerians to wake up and smell the coffee as they say. Is Saraki really all that he is being portrayed? Hasn’t he done enough by opening up himself to all sort of scrutiny even up to the most recent where he was being accused of aiding armed robbers in Offa. Does he have the luxury of state immunity or the cover of positional play in all these? I doubt and, despite no charge being stuck in the last three years, we continue to give the man names he truly and really does not deserve.

We see how people on the other side fall like weakened trees at the slightest scrutiny. We are in the middle of the NYSC scandal, we have seen the grass cutter issues, the NEC is at daggers drawn with the NNPC as we speak, the Minister of State for Petroleum screamed the other day and yet these are all honourable men and Saraki is the thief. Let him keep stealing.

Truth like they always say will definitely prevail no matter the level of subterfuge. Truth will always emerge and we will one day know who the real thieves are in this country. Till then , I siddon look.

 

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