Alabi Olayemi Abdulrazak
It is exactly one year on January 2, 2021 that the Kwara State Government took official possession of a portion of land otherwise known as Ile Arugbo or Ile L’Oke, depending on which side of Kwara politics one may belong to. Until the takeover, the land housed some shelters where the late Senator Olusola Saraki, and later his children, gathered their political followers to share largesse of various kinds. That facility until recently was notorious for annual stampedes and mysterious deaths of hundreds of people, mostly the aged.
The days leading January 2, 2020, the very day the land was taken over by the government, were charged. Precisely on December 28, the government issued a statement announcing the reclamation of the land from a firm, Asa Investment Limited, which is purportedly owned by the late Saraki on the ground that the land belonged to the government, was meant for construction of a secretariat, but was dubiously gifted to the firm without a dime paid to the public coffers or any document lawfully transferring its ownership to any private person. On December 29, Senator Bukola Saraki fired back, accusing the government of witch-hunt and unfairly targeting his family. But much more instructive was Senator Bukola Saraki’s claim in his statement that the land lawfully belonged to his father, that they have documents to back their claim to the land, and that they were going to court to reclaim their inheritance!