By Owei Lakemfa
IN this season of politics and bountiful harvests, many political giants are  becoming  political orphans who are in need of shelter. Better put, they are becoming political nomads wandering the landscape in search of better pastures.

A recurring decimal in contemporary politics is Dr  Abubakar OLusola Saraki, the  Waziri of Ilorin, popularly called Oloye. He was majority Senate leader in the Second Republic and has since 1979, pocketed Kwara State as far as politics goes.  That year, he got  Alhaji Adamu Atta elected governor of the State which included  most of today’s Kogi State.

When they fell out, he backed Senator Cornelius Adebayo to deny Atta a second term.  Under  the dubious transition programme of General Ibrahim Babangida, the Oloye’s choice for governor was Alhaji Shaba Lafiaji and this was translated into the people’s choice.

With the departure of the military in 1999, Saraki  made  Alhaji Mohammed Lawal  the state governor.. Four years later, he felt  his son, Bukola was ripe enough to rule the state, so he made him governor while simultaneously making his daughter, Gbemi a senator of the Federal Republic.

It must have been a satisfied and highly fulfilled Saraki  that saw his son clinch a second term and even attempting to run for the presidency. The Oloye then decreed that his daughter, Senator Gbemisola  Saraki  should be the next governor of his state in succession to her brother.

This is where yet unclear intrigues came to play. Governor Bukola Saraki is the supposed leader of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state but the impression is being given that he is disobeying his father’s will that his sister replaces him  in what should be the Oloye’s unbroken hold on the state.

With his son as PDP leader, the Oloye has suddenly become one of the political nomads in the country. He said the PDP has lost cohesion  and is completely bereft of ideas, so he has moved with his loyal daughter and supporters out of the PDP to a new party he owns called the  Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN).

So after three decades of dictating the local politics of Kwara State, an epic battle of the ruling Saraki dynasty is on the bill; it will pitch Olusola the father and  Gbemisola the daughter against Bukola the son. Will Bukola deliver the political death knell on his father’s political dynasty, and build his own or will the father show that he is a better strategist and deliver a knock- out punch on his son?

In this battle of epic proportions starring the Saraki   family, I wonder where the matriarch, Mrs Florence Morenike Saraki stands.  My bet is that she will stand by her husband and daughter. Only time will tell if this is a real political war or  just a game.

The powerful Atiku Abubakar is a political nomad who started out in the PDP in 1998, was elected the Vice President. As the Vice to then President Olusegun Obasanjo, initially, he called the shots and ran the ruling PDP before the more astute Obasanjo took complete control of both government and the party. Their   differences were not based on principles, ideology, policy directions or governance issues. It was principally about power.

In fact, the die was cast when Atiku decided in 2003  to challenge his boss for the PDP presidential ticket.  Having put his hand on the plough, the gravest error Atiku committed was to return to  Obasanjo’s team and wait for  the 2007 presidency. He thought, rather unwisely that it would be his for the asking. But Obasanjo and his boys were to turn the heat on Atiku, who rather than wait and fight, fled the PDP to nurture a new party, the Action Congress (AC).

He performed poorly on that platform in the 2007 elections. Atiku made the right noises on the AC platform, but rather than build the party into the formidable organisation it has now turned out to be, again, unwisely, dumped it to return to the PDP   obviously to take advantage of President Umaru Yar’Adu’s ill health and subsequent demise.

He sought to take advantage of the zoning arrangement in the PDP and has expended a lot of energy and money   getting a waiver from the party to be eligible  to contest, campaigning for zoning, being picked as the ‘ Northern concensus candidate’ and hoping to frighten or disqualify President Goodluck Jonathan from the PDP presidential race.

Tomorrow, Atiku might find out that  he would have had a better fighting chance for the presidency, had he remained in the AC(N) and built a credible alternative to the PDP. I won’t be surprised that after the PDP primaries, he would cry foul, and like a nomadic herdsman, look for new pastures in his endless search and craving for power.

Where  Saraki  the father and  Atiku are becoming political nomads, the comparatively younger Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is expanding the political pastures he has harnessed in the ACN. Ironically, Atiku was Tinubu’s leader in the political platform of General Musa Yar’Adua. But today, Tinubu has become a political giant on the country’s landscape whose support for any presidential candidate would translate to   quite a huge chunk of votes.

Tinubu’s political rise is partly due to his pro-democracy activities during the Abacha madness, his principled support for the June 12 elections, his performance as governor of Lagos State and the fact that his preferred successor, Governor Raji Fashola is generally accepted by all to have performed well. More importantly,  Tinubu rather than roam about, has remained in, and built the ACN into an efficient political machine which is ever expanding its political sphere of influence.

Also, his followers find him to be quite reliable and a dogged fighter who will neither retreat nor surrender. Another giant that has come into his own is General Muhammadu Buhari who has exhibited similar tendencies. Both men   have not only built solid parties, but equally solid followership  which are ever expanding. Such politicians can enter into principled alliances, but are unlikely to take to politically nomadic lives.