By Abdulbasit Ibrahim Oniwiridi

When apologist of the then ruling dynasty in Kwara State christened the APC gubernatorial candidate and now the Governor of Kwara State, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq “Ramoni Dagboru”, following disgraceful disruption of Ilorin Emirate annual Almanac launch held on December 26th 2018 at Emir’s palace, everyone was quick to shout them down, as the shout of a drowning man.

Little did anyone imagine it could be a prophetic nick, until his party continue to shatter under his leadership, while he continues to give impetus to deepening the crisis of a party that produced him.

Reading another outburst by known political merchants in my dear State, said to be supporting Governor Abdulrazaq is comic, they went to the extreme of naming social interactions of the Governor as one of his achievements and told us same tale of His Excellency riding his own car, living in his own house and so on.

Just like a Yoruba aphorism, ‘A lie,in its self-acclaimed fleet-footedness may have fled for twenty years. Trust the truth to catch up with it in no time’, Bi iro ba lo logun odun, ojo kan ni otito ma ba. Lies and pretends cannot be sustained, more so, Abdulrazaq’s pretence is not standing test of even less than a year and some of my submissions here would leave no one stressed up taking those trying to package albino for Kwarans as Oyibo. A leader true to himself appeal to reasoning, not to sentiments.

On September 5, 2019 during the 100 days of Governor Abdulrazaq, the CPS Rafiu Ajakaiye in syndicated article titled “100 Days of Hope, Prudence, and Restoration in Kwara”

https://dailytrust.com/100-days-of-hope-prudence-and-restoration-in-kwara, to commemorate his principal’s 100days in office, said
“It is 100 days since AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq was inaugurated as the seventh democratically elected Governor of Kwara State. On his first day in office, AbdulRazaq gave a clear signal his administration would be a departure from a past laced with profligacy and fanfare that had crippled the state.

He had insisted on a lean inauguration ceremony on the grounds that Kwara didn’t have the resources to waste. No partying. No merriment. He backed that up with a no-private-jet policy and has kept a very lean entourage that often comprises himself, with his signature backpack, and a few aides.”

However, I found it missing in the AAnians’s press conference whether or not, His excellency sticks to his ‘no-private-jet policy or not. If you find it worthy to celebrate our dear Governor for modestly deciding to board business class, a sincere government owe it a duty to tell the citizenry when it changed to hiring private jet from military, friends and businesses, it is only moral to let the citizenry know about the changes, else hiding it is now looking fishy.

It is also utterly ridiculous to continually campaign with the fact that the Governor stays in his own house, when actually, facilities meant to house a sitting Governor is wasting away and gulping tax payers fortune for maintenance, which ought to have reasonably reduced since the Governor have refused to use it, yet there is no clear cut difference in budgetary allocation from the locust years and now for the aforementioned abode.

On May 28, 2020, a day to one year anniversary of the Governor, Ajakaye in another article titled “Kwara, Abdulrazaq and things less talked about”, where he made the following categorical statements;

https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/05/kwara-abdulrazaq-and-things-less-talked-about/amp/

“At his (Abdulrazaq) inauguration in May, people waited for instant dismissal of the top echelon of the civil service who worked with the last administration. People expected him to instantly sack over 2,000 sunset teachers who had recently been engaged by the former administration.” Did he not lay off the Permanent Secretaries for no justifiable reasons and sack sunset teachers after using them to sway sentiments and score cheap publicity scores? Mayhaps, that’s the strategy of the Governor, to milk publicity off everybody opportunity before acting his script, the He for She award is also a clear pointer, as it’ll be a miracle to reconstitute his cabinet with that number of female.

Ajakaye furthered that “Partisans expected immediate, arbitrary dissolution of elected local government executive and legislative committees. People wanted former officials haunted down, disgraced and chased out of town. People simply wanted many things done like before”

Glaringly contrary to this position, our Governor is not only haunting down or attempting to disgrace opposition figures within the state, but going the extreme to subject to public ridicule, members of his own political party for reasons best known to him.

The way and manner he unleashed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on the Suspended former Council officials, armtwisted them to decamp to his faction of the APC before they could be left off the hook.

He used the same might to protect his deceased Chief of Staff, who was alleged of receiving bribe from some officials of the previous government and invited by the EFCC, the case obviously died with the man, a clear case of a leader publicly acting saint and privately condoning and protecting corruption you might want to say.

How the Governor’s political camp and personal aides has continued to deride leadership, elders and stakeholders of the party unremorsefully in Kwara State is worrisome to all, but not the Governor.

The latest of which is the media onslaught against two of the foremost leaders of APC; Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo of the radio fame and Professor Shuaib Oba Abdulraheem, who undoubtedly is one of the best men to come out of Ilorin in recent years.

Just like Ajakaye saw the future, he passed a judgement on such political behavior, stating that “The irony of such expectations (now political behavior of his principal) was that these are arbitrary actions that made Kwarans loath and reject the former administration and everything it represented.” The question now is, why is Abdulrazaq doing the same thing under a ‘change’ administration? Must every privileged Kwaran leader strive to be domineering, suppressive, totalitarian or be a subjugator?

According to Ajakaye, such behaviour, vengeful and bad as it is, was the norm”, and unfortunately, remains the norm we are living with. Our Governor is said to be annoyed over election funds, campaign motorcycle, cars and co, what can be more revengeful? What will he have other eleven aspirants denied ticket fraudulently handed to him, yet conceded to him do?

Perhaps, the Governor finally gave in to the unwise counsel those Ajakaye said “clearly wanted him (the Governor) to brazenly haunt down certain persons on assumption of office or violently repress those who disagree with him politically — a throwback to the years Kwarans rejected.” Of course, Abdulrazaq is doing that throwback so well, and should remember the fate that befell the real time players.

REACTION TO MY LAST ARTICLE

Whiling choosing to ignore the reactions that trailed my last article, with varying degree of personal attacks like calling my academic pursuit a fraud, my person a pseudo and even questioning my being an Oniwiridi.

I won’t dignify all other postulations except the attack on my ancestry, especially by my Aunt’s son, who I want to agree with the mum who not only called to apologise on behalf of his son, but also made sure, she visited my wife to tender an apology.

It is my prayer, Kwara won’t return to the dark past of Salake and gbosa years, where people were mauled down for holding a contrary opinion to the ruling class even though a popular one, may Kwara never return to that era.

Oniwiridi is a PhD student at the University of Ife, he can be reached via Oniwiridibas@gmail.com