Destruction of the Saraki’s home – a post mortem —Eugene Upah

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3 January 2020 

Senator Gbemisola Saraki, the current Minister of State, Transportation, is the biggest loser right now. She aligned with the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed & other top shots from Kwarra to stop her brother, Senator Bukola Saraki from returning to the Senate. Few days ago she visited the senior Saraki to see how both could come together to resist the planned demolition of their ancestral family home built many years back by their late father, Oloye Olusola Saraki after many years of misunderstanding with her brother. She resorted to self help when it became obvious the incumbent Governor of the State, Abdulraman Abdulrazaq had made up his mind to demolish their late father's home & revoke the C of O. How would she feel seating in the exco with the President & other Ministers & bearing to mind that same government supervised the wrecking of a home she once lived? See her looking helplessly at the site of destruction today. There are some battles you don't meddle into because you have to prove a point. Fighting your own blood & lineage is one of them – even nature won't let you do away with it. 
Similarly, last year in Cross River State a certain former Vice Chancellor sat in the executive Chambers of the Governor & disowned his very (own) younger brother because of family misunderstanding instigated by greed & imminent benefits. If there was anyone who had cast iron/cogent reasons to demolish opposition's properties it was former Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State. Despite opponent's business facilities breaching set urban renewal plans, Akpabio refused bringing down insisting the act would be misinterpreted for executive recklessness. He was able to manage his enemies despite having serious running battles with them as seating Governor. 
A man once told me he rejected over 500 million naira that would change his life forever to sell his family home because according to him, his late father was buried on the piece of land. How then did Gbemisola feel today seeing bulldozers excavating her ancestral home & exhuming the remains of her late father on the orders of a Governor who is smaller in pedigree & everything than her brother, Bukola? For anyone who cares to listen, the Governor had the guts to break down the Sarakis home because he saw Gbemisola as been on their side of the divide. The Governor should have let that structure stand in honor of late sage, a founding father & former political leader of Kwarra state. 
Gbemisola may be Minister today, but she has lost her place in the knighthood of the Sarakis.
Upah writes from Calabar, Nigeria