Saraki: A Burial With Enduring Political Effects

An otherwise status burial for Mrs. Florence Morenike Saraki, ended up a statement event for her son and former Senate President, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki, writes Olawale Olaleye.

His political networth is quite intimidating and of class preference – both elitist and retail. Masked, often, by an infective smile, contrasting a personality that quivers not to terrorisation, former Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, is a model chip off the old block. 

Although the eventual outcome of his mother’s burial might have been chiseled by the universe, ultimately, Saraki, too, by his likely disposition, has exhibited through distinctive personal example, that politics without bitterness is not just a political catchphrase,  but a possibility by choice. 

The moment his mother, 89, passed on Tuesday, June 18, 2024, the Ikoyi, Lagos home of the Sarakis, became an instant tourist’s locale, where he and his siblings daily hosted visitors, who came on condolence visits. 

From the political class to the business and international communities, as well as their mere acquaintances, Saraki could hardly take a day off from the barrage of visitors, who daily besieged their home. 

At some points, he had to change location and moved briefly to Abuja, to honour and host other visitors at the federal capital city. Perhaps, one of the costs of being a man of many parts.

President Bola Tinubu didn’t just send his condolences to the family through a statement made public by his media team, acknowledging the place of the family in the political artery of the nation; his wife, Oluremi Tinubu, physically visited the Sarakis so the message from the first family could sink in better.

The current leadership of the Senate, led by Godswill Akpabio, came, too, with several other principal officers of the senate, to honour a man, who once occupied that office with excellence, confidence and elan. It was a full house. Soon after, all past leaderships of the Senate and the House of Representatives called at their home. 

Of note, again, was the visit by national leadership of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), led by its chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, the embattled former governor of Kano State. 

This was after the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had come to identify with one of their own. The National Working Committee (NWC) of the PDP, combined with the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the party, visited Saraki and his siblings.

How do you then start listing the incumbent governors from far and near as well as their former colleagues, who visited from time to time, and in their numbers to honour the family and identify with an individual, who had built a strong network across all divides?

It was interesting to hear the title of the host governor, being moved between the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and his Ondo State counterpart, Lucky Aiyedatiwa. While Lagos was the city that majorly hosted the visitors, Ondo is the state of origin of the deceased.

Nevertheless, anyone could have been excused if he or she had thought that the condolence visits, with all its glitz and blitz, were all that Saraki and his family would get and deservedly so. But the shocker was yet to come. The two-day and three-layer event was a carnival of sort. Lagos literally bit more than it could chew.

From the service of songs held on Thursday, July 18, at the Convention Centre, Eko Hotel, to the burial service at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Marina, on the morning of Friday, July 19, and back at the Convention Centre, for the reception proper, after the internment, the whole of Nigeria took a break for the Saraki family, and Lagos, as it were, rocked the whole weekend in celebration of mama’s worthy life. 

The size of the reception party was huge and bullying. The crowd, a combination of the high and might as well as the lowest in the social strata, moved from the church to the burial ground and berthed at the reception. The list was endless, and it disrupted the flow of the party mood as they were being rolled out, time after time.

Saraki, who would pass for an introverted-extrovert, knew and understood his crowd. He is both a strategist and tactician. Deep and slow to speaking, he is also adept at reading situations very clearly. He is just another cosmopolitan leader, whose currency, assets, and sustaining power are ensconced in networking.

Of course, the observing public is at liberty to interpret the honour extended to him in the wake of the passing of his mother differently. But the thrust of that analysis cannot be detached from the fact that even if he inherited an active dynasty, he has continued to improve the status of that inheritance through personal capital.

Maybe this reader should look around and tell how many Nigerian leaders can attract the sort of quality crowd that identified with Saraki outside office. Here’s a man who has been out of office for over five years and boasts no means of dispensing any patronage whatsoever for anyone to want to identify or stand by him.

But the reason is simple. It speaks to a mind that despises bitter politics and does not thrive on the mischievous back of the pull him down syndrome. He loathes the idea of demonising other people to make oneself look good. Yet, his greatest strength is located in healthy competition.

It didn’t matter, therefore, whether or not anyone summoned or recalled any traditional ruler from the event on account of envy or petty politics. The fact that such a decision failed to blight the beauty of the day was enough feedback that should send such a shallow mind into endless shame and regrets.  

However, it always brings Saraki joy to compete in a marketplace of ideas, where the best emerges, based on the quality of debate and the contributions everyone brings to the table. He thinks strategy every minute-on-the-minute. His ability to read equations very lucidly is endearing, and his inputs, which are usually context-based, are naturally irresistible. 

Another takeaway from his brand of politics is the decency of engagements. Saraki is not the type of politician that indulges in a pig or dog fight. Urbane, with a very high degree of standard and exposure, he knows too well the implications of avoidable political fisticuffs and would never let anyone with inferiority complex drag him into such ignoble bout.

As you read this, if your recollections did not fail you, maybe you should cast your mind back in time and see if you’ve ever found Saraki, no matter how desperate the situation was, doing some dirty fighting? He would rather resort to an intellectual falling out and make it an issue-based debate, yet unseen. For him, it’s about class and pedigree.

This is why, away from mama’s status burial, which was deserving, having passed on to the great beyond at an enviable age of 89, less than two months to her 90th on August 8, the message of Saraki’s undeniable stature cannot be lost on all, including those who might consider themselves avowed enemies of the Kwara-born political powerhouse. 

Certainly, whenever names are being tossed up in the push for the country’s leadership in the foreseeable future, it is yet to be seen how this one name – Abubakar Bukola Saraki – will be missing. 

He is a living proof that it is not enough to lay claims to being around for so long a time. What matters are the things that account for the times in question.