As Nigerians prepare for the Presidential and National As-sembly elections on February 16.
The race for the Kwara Central Senatorial District will be the cynosure of all eyes as the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, will lock horns with Dr. Yahaya Oloriegbe, a political archrival of many years. Oloriegbe, a former Majority leader of the Kwara State House of Assembly, is contesting on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) while Saraki is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate.
Oloriegbe, who has contested against Saraki twice (2011, 2015) and lost in the two instances, told newsmen in Lagos yesterday that Saraki has ceased to be the candidate to beat in his constituency and come February 16, the Senate President will be beaten ‘silly’ at the polls.
But the Senate President has described the doomsday prophecy as a daydream. Saraki described Oloriegbe as one of the ‘seasonal or visiting’ politicians in Kwara State who have no political value. In the 2011 polls, Saraki, then of the PDP, garnered 78,799 votes to defeat Oloriegbe, then of the ACN who scored 53,058 votes.
In the 2015 election, Saraki, of the APC polled 118,879 votes against Oloriegbe of the PDP, who polled 66,884 votes. “I will like to let everyone know that in today’s Kwara, Bukola Saraki is no longer the candidate to beat.
It’s daylight in our state of harmony and we have seen the light, no more Saraki dynasty control over the politics and affairs of the people of Kwara State,” he said. Oloriegbe’s campaign to oust Saraki had been hinged on several issues, among them allegation that the Senate President had spent the last 16 years deepening the poverty level in his constituency instead of alleviating same. Oloriegbe claimed that the level of socio-economic challenges across the communities in Kwara Central Senatorial District and, indeed the entire Kwara State, had reached alarming proportions.