Bukola Saraki’s Political Resurgence

Bukola Saraki never fully left. That is the first thing to understand about what is being described as his political comeback in Kwara State. Even during the years after the “O To Ge” movement swept his political structure out of power in 2019, he remained visible in national conversations, offering interventions on governance, maintaining alliances, and keeping the machinery warm. What is different now is that the machinery is moving again with purpose.

His current moves are deliberate in their modesty. Medical outreach programmes, stakeholder engagements, and community visits. None of the grand announcements that characterised his Senate presidency years. In March 2026, he publicly ruled out a 2027 presidential bid and backed the argument for a southern candidate, a statement that served two purposes: it removed a distraction and signalled that his immediate ambitions are concentrated closer to home. Speculation among his loyalists now centres on a return to the Senate to represent Kwara Central, a seat that would give him a platform without requiring him to lead a full state takeover in one electoral cycle.

The terrain, however, is genuinely complicated. The Kwara APC has internal divisions that Saraki is actively trying to exploit, and some of those divisions are real enough to create openings. But his own vehicle, the PDP, is in the middle of its own crisis.

Multiple figures are already jostling for the 2027 governorship ticket within the party, and in June 2026, Hassan Oladimeji, a formerly aligned figure, publicly announced that Saraki is no longer his political leader. That kind of public break, in Nigerian politics, is rarely casual.

What Saraki has is name recognition, a demonstrated capacity for political organisation, and the advantage that disillusionment with the current state administration creates a legitimate opposition space. What he does not yet have is a unified structure to fill that space. Building one, quietly and from the ground up, appears to be exactly what he is doing.

Whether that is enough by 2027 is the question Kwara politics will spend the next year

answering. For now, it is enough that Saraki’s name is still a household name.