YOMI OWOPE WRITES ABOUT THE PEDIGREE OF FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE, SENATOR BUKOLASARAKI AND THE NEED FOR HIM TO ACTIVATE HIS POLITICAL STRUCTURE AHEAD OF THE 2027 PRESIDENTIAL POLL.
D
r Bukola Saraki evokes the figure of the idle king in Tennyson’s Ulysses—a man who has known both triumph and adversity, surrounded at times by loyal allies and, at others, by no one at all. His political career is a study in momentum: within three decades, he rose from a senior executive role at a major bank to serve two terms as governor of Kwara State, entered the Senate in 2011, and, by 2015, had engineered his way to the presidency of the Nigerian Senate. Few Nigerian politicians have climbed faster or maneuvered more deftly. Yet by 2019, the machinery seemed to grind to a halt, leaving Saraki unmoored, a veteran leader without an obvious battlefield.