Ilorin: Demolition of Ile Arugbo unacceptable ― Arewa group

The demolished Ile Arugbo

Leading Arewa group, Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), has condemned the recent demolition of the ancestral home of late Dr Olusola Saraki by the Kwara State government, saying it is dirty and downright unacceptable.

A statement signed by the CNG Spokesperson, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, said the demolition is the height of insensitivity to the feelings of the generality of northerners and Nigeria in whose service old man Saraki lived and died.

The CNG lamented that Dr Olusola Saraki who sacrificed his entire adult in the service of humanity should be repaid in such a callous manner by “an irresponsible government that is basically self-serving.”

The CNG recounted that in addition to his innumerable mentorship and humanitarian services across Nigeria and the globe, Olusola Saraki, a medical doctor and physician, also served the nation and Kwara state in various production capacities.

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“As far back as 1977 for instance, Saraki was elected member of the Constituent Assembly that produced the 1979 Constitution. In 1979 he was elected a Senator of the Second Republic and became Senate Leader. In 1983 Saraki was re-elected into the Senate on the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) platform.

“Earlier, after graduation from the University of London, and St George’s Hospital Medical School, London, he worked as a medical officer at the General Hospital, Lagos and the Creek Hospital, Lagos before joining politics to run in the 1964 parliamentary election for Ilorin as an independent.

“After the election, he returned to his medical practice in Lagos, only returning to party-politics in 1978/79.

“For this retired gentle servant of the people to be treated with disdain by irresponsible politicians a few years after his death is therefore dirty, callous and downright unacceptable,” Suleiman said in the statement.

He warned that the CNG would not watch idly while respected northern figures, living or dead are “deliberately ridiculed by bankrupt power-hungry and cutthroat politicians anywhere.”