The Emir of Ilorin, Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, last week took it upon himself to reconcile warring siblings, the Senate president, Senator Bukola Saraki an
The Emir of Ilorin, Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, last week took it upon himself to reconcile warring siblings, the Senate president, Senator Bukola Saraki and his sister, a former Senator herself, Gbemisola Saraki. The two are the most popular children of the late Ilorin born politician and a former Senator himself in the second republic, Olusola Saraki. The reconciliatory attempt between the two comes after years of bickering. At a closed-door meeting with the Emir, the two siblings were asked to put the past behind them. When they came out of the meeting, they were received by a mammoth crowd who had gathered at the entrance of the Emir’s palace. They both walked out and rode in the same vehicle, Bukola’s vehicle precisely, to their father’s house. The Emir and some notable northern figures who were friends of Bukola and Gbemiosla’s late father felt concerned about the lingering bad blood and worked quietly for years to reconcile the feuding siblings.
Recall that their disagreement began in 2006 when Bukola, who was on the verge of completing his eight-year tenure as Kwara governor, declined to support his father’s wish to have Gbemisola succeed him. Instead, Bukola who was then in the PDP, backed the current Kwara State Governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed as his successor. In anger, Gbemisola and her father left the PDP to form a new party, Allied Congress Party of Nigeria, on which platform she ran for governor. Unfortunately, she was defeated by the incumbent in what appeared to be a political humiliation of some sorts for the elder Mr. Saraki, who died in 2012 and who was for several years, in total control of Kwara politics.
Expectedly, the bad blood continued with the two refusing to see eye to eye. Bukola took over Gbemisola’s seat in the senate thus leaving her in the political cold. But when President Muhammadu Buhari took over power, he attempted to compensate her by making her the Pro Chancellor and Chairperson of the Federal University Otuoke, Baylesa State, the home town of former president, Goodluck Jonathan. The feud between the two became even more glaring when Gbemisola, an economics graduate of the University of Sussex, UK, didn’t attend the wedding of her brother’s daughter, Tosin Saraki, last year.
All through the week long celebrations where her brother hosted the cream of Nigeria’s business and political elite for the ceremony, Gbemisola was conspicuously absent. Curiously, when the family held a fifth year memorial for their father last year, she was very visible. Perhaps with the recent attempt by the Emir of Ilorin to reconcile the warring siblings, they may likely sheathe their swords especially now that Bukola is gearing to run for the highest office in the land.
