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Sunday, April 10, 2011

Kwara’s naked politics!

The Kwara State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has had to deny, twice in less than two months, that it was planning to circulate fake nude pictures of Senator Rukayat Gbemisola Saraki. 

Ms Saraki is the governorship candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN).

The allegation was first made in February when Senator Saraki and her ACPN raised alarm that the PDP, fronted in the state by her brother and incumbent governor, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, had perfected plans to distribute mocked-up images of her in lurid stages of undress to portray her as unfit to become governor.

A similar allegation was made last week preparatory to the cancelled National Assembly elections.  According to ACPN's Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Abdulahi Oganija, "the plot which included an anti-female governor procession to the metropolis from the mosque after Jumat on Friday (April 1) was allegedly being coordinated by the wife of a highly placed top shot of the PDP in the state."

A meeting was purportedly held at the Kwara State Government House lodge in the afternoon of Tuesday last week where strategies to use against the ACPN werediscussed, including details of the publication of a fake nude photograph of Gbemi Saraki and the recruitment of young men who would carry placards from the Ilorin Central Mosque after Jumat with the shout of  "no to a woman governor in a Muslim state".

The statement concluded that the PDP had been planning to publish fake nude photographs of the ACPN gubernatorial candidate for some time, but each time it planned to release the publication the information leaked.

Like it did in February, the Kwara PDP was quick to deny any such plans. 

The party called the allegation malicious and a calculated attempt to paint it in a bad light. In its defence, the PDP said it had "no business or otherwise in the circulation of a nude photograph of a candidate, rather its focus is on how to consolidate on the dividends of democracy already put in place by the PDP-led government in the state."

ACPN was therefore, "strongly advised to base its campaign on issues rather than carrying rumour against the PDP which cannot be substantiated".

Among the dirty weapons used in Nigerian politics where there are no decent rules of engagement are real and doctored pictures of political opponents. There was that famous video of Abia State Governor, Theodore Orji, allegedly taken while he was swearing to an oath at the notorious Okija Shrine. 

Sometimes in 2009, a newspaper published the nude picture of Wale Alausa, a member of the Ogun State House of Assembly at a shrine. He and several of his colleagues who were then plotting to remove Governor Gbenga Daniel were reported to have sworn to an oath of allegiance to the governor before things fell apart.

A disgraced Alausa later called a press conference where he declared that he was led like a sheep to the slaughter by Daniel vowing to pay the governor back in his own coin for leaking the picture. 

Alausa and his sympathisers, known as G15 in the House, threatened to also publish nude photographs of Daniel taken at the shrine.  They argued that they had restrained from making the photographs public before then because they did not want to embarrass the state. 

Almost two years after, no such photograph of Daniel has seen the light of day. 

Then there was an obviously fake picture of two men in homosexual tryst circulated early this year by opponents of Kaduna State Governor, Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa. The image showed the face of Yakowa superimposed on a man having anal sex with another man. In their desperation to drive their point home, those behind the mischief hung portraits of Yakowa and his wife on the wall. The image became viral on the Internet and mobile phones with some people actually believing it.

Another subject of nude picture scandal is the House of Representatives candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Anambra State, Mrs. Uche Ekwunife. A video was recently published on you tube of two women having sex. The authors of the report claimed Ekwunife was one of the women. It took the intervention of the State Security Service (SSS) and threat of severe punishment for those behind it to pull it out of circulation.

As bad as the other cases may be, none of them holds a candle to the allegation by Gbemi Saraki. The stone she is throwing at the PDP over the nude picture saga lands straight at the doorstep of her elder brother, Bukola Saraki who is the political leader of the party in Kwara. She left the party over the governor's insistence that she would not succeed him. The ensuing battle saw her and their father, Chief Olusola Saraki, dump the PDP to pitch tents with ACPN.

Chief Saraki was instrumental to his son becoming governor, a gesture he wanted to extend to his daughter. Oloye, as the father is called, is both the political and spiritual leader of ACPN. 

Officially, Bukola and Gbemi are both products of the seeds Oloye planted in Florence Morenike Saraki. While the governor was born in England in 1962, the senator was birthed in Lagos in 1964.

Governor Saraki is contesting today's National Assembly election to replace his sister as the senator representing Kwara Central Senatorial District. But he would rather have AbdulFatah Ahmed take over from him in Government House.

Their father has spent money, built structures and has over the years determined who got what in Kwara State. This time around, he wants Gbemi to be governor the same way he singlehandedly installed Bukola in 2003.

Release of nude pictures is not the only alarm Gbemisola has raised against the government led by her brother. There are also issues of the N1.35billion loan, vote manipulation and neglect of workers. 

Gbemi too has baggage of her own. There are questions about what happened to her marriage to Segun Fowora and allegations that she got too friendly with some of her colleagues at the National Assembly. 

We may be forced to hear more about that in the sibling rivalry going on in Kwara if the nude picture drama does not achieve the desired effect.

Source: Click link below»
http://www.independentngonline.com/DailyIndependent/Article.aspx?id=31810

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