Expectedly, it came as a shock to many when results from the National Assembly election began to trickle in and it was discovered that the Senate pres
Expectedly, it came as a shock to many when results from the National Assembly election began to trickle in and it was discovered that the Senate president, Bukola Saraki had lost his bid to return to the senate. Receiving the news with mixed feelings, many wondered at who could have had such political influence to dislodge a political colossus like Bukola Saraki.
Well, it is none other than Ibrahim Oloriegbe, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate who got the ticket to vie for the Kwara central senatorial election. Indeed when he made his intentions known, many waved his ambition aside. The people of Kwara state have seen him lose the same contest in the past but that didn’t deter him. Ibrahim Oloriegbe vowed he would retire Senate President Bukola Saraki and true to his words, he did exactly that on Sunday, at least for now.
He polled 123,808 votes to defeat Saraki who had 68,994 votes. Wondering why his victory is spectacular? For one, he defeated not just any senator but the senate president. And secondly, his rival’s family has been at the helms of political affairs in Kwara State for decades. Saraki’s father, Olusola, was a prominent politician in the second republic, his sister, though not in the same political camp, was a senator. On his part, the senate president left office as the governor of Kwara state and saw to the emergence of Abdulfatah Ahmed, one of his staunch loyalists, as successor.
A graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Ibrahim Oloriegbe is not new to the politics of Kwara. In 1999, he was elected a member of the Kwara house of assembly under the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). He held sway as majority leader till he left in 2003. Oloriegbe contested for the senate under the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in 2011, against Saraki, then of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Saraki’s victory was believed to have been influenced by his incumbency power as then governor. He was announced to have polled a total of 78,799 votes to defeat Oloriegbe who polled 53,058 votes.
Oloriegbe soon emerged the APC candidate for Kwara central senatorial district after he polled a total of 12,816 votes to beat his other two rivals, Yinka Aluko who scored 9,577 votes and Musbau Esinrogunjo who scored 6,382 votes. With his emergence, he went to work with APC leaders in the state including Lai Mohammed, minister of information, to ensure that the party coasts to victory not just in the district but in the state.
At a press conference in Lagos earlier this year, the APC candidate vowed that he would defeat the senate president and retire him from politics. He lamented that Kwara was not well represented at the national assembly and that this, among reasons, informed his decision to vie for a seat at the legislative chamber.
According to him, “They are political voyagers and power merchants. They don’t share our Islamic values and culture of leadership. Our communities and indeed, Kwara state have been poorly represented at the federal level; poor representation and advocacy has deprived us of legitimate human, fiscal, economic and developmental entitlements.”
Ibrahim Oloriegbe also spoke of how he was denied his mandate after his constituents voted “massively” for him in 2011. The senator-elect also once said that although he has no “money for politics, his goodwill will get him to where he wants. And truly, his goodwill just took him to the senate; displacing the nation’s number three citizen.
Additional report from TheCable
