[OPINION] Bukola Saraki And The Superiority Of Personal Over Collective Ambition By Obani Chukwuemeka

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The media has been awash with both positive and negative reactions to the way and manner in which the president of the senate and speaker of the house were elected.
Various school of thoughts have tried to explain what really happened on that fateful day. Some see the action of Bukola Saraki as a betrayal of his party, others see it as an expression of what democracy entails and this writer has decided to contribute to this national discourse.
The pertinent question is the process that brought Bukola Saraki as the senate president valid. The resounding answer has always and still is yes it was a legal process the point of deviation is the moral correctness of the process.
This is what the writer hopes to shed light on. In ethics, there is what is termed ethical relativism or individual ethics whereby the supreme ethics of every individual is the attainment of personal good or success. The definintion of the moral rightness of the action of Bukola Saraki therefore borders on the ethical perspective it is viewed from. There is nothing wrong in having a dream or ambition and working assiduously and scheming smartly to achieve that dream. The move of Bukola Saraki is the kind of move that one would expect of Bola Tinubu who we will all agree is one of the most intelligent politicians Nigeria has been blessed with. If this was the handwork of Tinubu everyone will be praising his wisdom and craftiness. The problem as I see it is that no one saw this coming and this should serve as a lesson to the old timers who take the street smarts of the younger generation for granted.
Bukola Saraki was one of the PDP governors who risked all to support a new and hitherto weak idea of upsurping the ruling party.
Most people the writer included felt it was a search for a fools gold and that the governors who did that would realise soonest that they were mistaken. This opinion was not necessarily because this writer supported the shenanigans of the ruling peoples democratic party but because the writer couldn’t envisage the possibility of overthrowing the ruling party being that such an occurrence had never occured in Africa.
Bukola Saraki was thus among the governors who put their money where their mouth was just like former governor of Rivers state Rotimi Amaechi. They dared to think the unthinkable and worked on their thoughts and the rest is history. So many people want Amaechi to be compensated with a position that will adequately reward him for that daring act. It is therefore also normal for Bukola Saraki to also crave a reward being that he also let go of his presidential ambition for the good of the party.
In life there are those who wait to be compensated for the sacrifices they make and there are those who reward themselves. I would like to think I fall into the group of those who reward themselves and Bukola Saraki is defintely a member of the group of people who do not wait for fate to deal them whatever hand it desires.
A further question is what were the expectations of people from Bukola Saraki knowing that he craved the position of Senate Presidency and also knowing that with the way the process was going, he wouldn’t have achieved that his dream.
It is a problem of highly successful people that the majority of people they will meet are unsuccessful or less successful. This set of prople usually create reasons and postulations why they are not successful and always cast aspersion on those who succeed despite the odds and obstacles.
No body should ever get to apologise for being ambitious or wanting to be primus inter pares (first among equals).
The party APC should celebrate the fact that they have some one of such astute mindset in their midst because he will be an asset in checkmating the excesses and underhand tactics of PDP who are not taking their role as opposition lightly.
The fear is, given the reactions of the APC, they may end up pushing the senate president to the PDP and that will not augur well in the wider scheme of things because he would definitely take some loyalist with him. This may end up making the senate have a pdp majority and this will in no small measure reduce the ability of PMB to achieve all he has set out to achieve.
Bottomline, everyone should learn to know when they have lost a game of wits which is what politics is all about and accept that fact and look at the wider picture.
I do not hold brief for either parties but I do have a vested interest in what happens because as a citizen of the great country Nigeria, whatever happens will affect me negatively or positively.
My advice is that the party APC follow the dialogue that elders always point out as necessary when a mosquito rests on one’s scrotum. You have to be careful so that in killing the mosquito, you do not hurt yourself.
In as much as he should be made to realise that having achieved his wish, he must now work towards being one of the pillars of party superiority not just over party members, but making sure the party always have one up on the opposition party PDP, he must also not be made to feel ostracised because in the long run it will affect the party more than the individual.
The Bukola Saraki saga can either be turned to plus points or it will lead to the gradual fall of APC. The most important factor in this equation is the progress of our great country Nigeria.

Obani Chukwuemeka
Lyceum of the Philippines University
+639152041349