Over the past few weeks, while awaiting the long overdue handover from President Goodluck Jonathan to President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, Nigerians all across the country have virtually set-up permanent camps at the back of their newspapers and on online blogs, with their eyes pierced to their television sets and their ears pressed against their radios. This is because over the past few weeks, we have seen that the fallacy of the great Nigeria that Goodluck Jonathan claimed to have been building has started to crumble before our very eyes.

Fuel, one of the most basic commodities that affects the market price of the myriad other components that determine our daily livelihoods, has been either difficult to get – because of the long and exhausting queues; expensive to buy – because the black market sellers are out to get their pound of flesh from the populace from this situation; or largely unavailable in many cities – because oil marketers have given directives to non-NNPC filling stations to stop selling their products

Power, has also been a luxury of the past in recent weeks. With everyday Nigerians enjoying less than 4 hours a day of stable supply, and AEDC claiming that the megawatts that the outgoing government campaigned about increasing, has actually decreased. Combined with the strain that comes with the acquisition of fuel, it is has become an open secret that even those now-repentant few that supported ‘Transformation’ over ‘Change’ during the general elections – cannot wait for May 29th to come.

In addition to the eagerness that Nigerians have experienced before the formal crossing over from this failed era into the next one, the citizenry, especially those that understand the dynamics of politics, have been following the complexities of the race to the Senate Presidency. This is because out of various elements that make up the three branches of government in Nigeria; the upper legislative chamber will wield enormous influence over the course that Nigeria will chart in the next four years.

On one hand, we have two candidates that have been running from political pillars to underhanded polls trying to salvage their long-shot bids to become the number 3 citizen through Godfatherism. On the other hand, we have Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki, who has remained largely quiet in the public arena over the last few weeks, internally reaching out to newly elected and returning Senators to support his bid based on his precedents as a dogged-advocate of the Nigerian people.

To call a spade ‘a spade’, out of the field of candidates that have indicated their interest at the Senate Presidency, it is clear that Dr. Saraki, as the former Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), is vastly more qualified for the position of Senate President, which comes accompanied with being the Chairman of the National Assembly. His legislative precedents, which include the exposure of the fuel subsidy fraud on the floor of the Senate in 2011; his intervention in the ‘Save Bagega’ incident as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, which led to the Lead Remediation Project in Zamfara; and his fact-based opposition to the Goodluck Jonathan administration over the years, has made him a people’s champion in the eyes of many.

However, this ‘people’s champion’ position that Dr. Saraki has come to be known as, has not come without its own personal sacrifices. For example, despite the fact that in 2006, Nuhu Ribadu – as the then-Chairman of the EFCC, named then-Governor Saraki’s Kwara State administration as one of the 5 states with the highest levels of integrity. After he exposed the subsidy fraud to the Nigerian people in 2011, the Goodluck Jonathan government began a systematic witch-hunt against Dr. Saraki for challenging their impunity that cost Nigerians billions of dollars. The outgoing administration began digging up ‘alleged’ dirt to silence Senator Saraki for being a political nonconformist, in an era where governance ‘of the people’ had turned into a political pantomime that revolved around stroking President Jonathan’s ego.

Despite these attempts, Saraki has remained steadfast in his bid to remain true to his mandate of representing Nigerians in the Senate, and speaking out against injustices. From all indications, given his level of point-by-point engagement on social media during the general elections that systematically crumbled the misconception that the outgoing government was actually working for the betterment of the people, Saraki has shown that he is able to become a leader that will not be cowed into submission by official blackmail (in the form of the EFCC) like some other political heavyweights in recent times.

Given recent reports coming out of the Abuja, following the APC retreat for their Senator-elects, with 35 out of 59 incoming Senators appending their signatures in support of Saraki’s Senate Presidency, and majority of PDP senators-to-be backing his bid, it is clear that in the absence of any political miracles – like the “16 is greater than 19” NGF crisis – all roads seemed paved for the emergence of Saraki as the next Senate President.

What the aforementioned means is that at the helm of affairs, Nigerians will have an incorruptible leader in the form of General Muhammadu Buhari, whose role will be to wedge the leakages in our many dams of corruption; put the various power blocs in his own party in check, and; ensure that the incoming cabinet is full of performers, and not career politicians.

In the number 2 position, we will have Professor Yemi Osibanjo, whose task as the technocrat on the ticket will be to provide technical and visionary day-to-day leadership on how to rebuild Nigeria, not just in a cosmetic sense, but in a policy-driven and sustainable fashion.

And finally, at the helm of the National Assembly, after the swearing in of the new legislators, we will hopefully have a man like Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki, whose penchant for people-minded politics, and pedigree as a public servant with the cerebral capacity and charisma to guide the National Assembly over the next four years into enacting trickle-down and cost-effective legislation, will ensure that Nigeria finally has its political dream team - at least, in the starting line-up. When this happens, a new Nigeria will truly be on the horizon.

Ufon wrote from Abuja