Kwarans have come of age

Feb 20, 2011

For the past one month or so, several articles have been published in some national dailies analysing the political situation in Kwara State in manners that suggest that the people of the state remain perpetually subservient to the Saraki political dynasty.
Particularly disturbing in these obviously sponsored write-ups is the mischievous summation that the April 2011 governorship contest in the state would be fought in the main between the Olusola Saraki’s Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led by Saraki Jnr – Governor Bukola. The articles attempted a deliberate blackout of the rising profile among the masses and the intellectuals of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) whose governorship candidate, Mohammed Dele Belgore (SAN), is a distinguished Kwaran par excellence. And, the party’s welfarist manifestoes.
This claim (of continued domination by the Sarakis) is not only preposterous and laughable, given its contradiction of the deep-seated disenchantment among Kwarans home and abroad over the crude way the state has been run like a fiefdom and conquered territory over the years.
It also runs counter to the winds of change waiting to sweep away the Sarakis in the coming ballot, with the outcome of the recent Offa Local Government polls as an eye-opener for the doubting Thomases.
The writers also assumed quite painfully that we the young generation of educated, broad-minded Kwarans – who unfortunately for the Sarakis now make up the bulk of the voting population – have chosen to remain in perpetual servitude and are contented with our being the objects of ridicule across the socio-political spectrum nationwide.
Across Kwara today, we, the youths are making it clear to our parents that our generation would not go the way of the past two generations of Kwarans who have watched while their future were being mortgaged by one single individual. And, our parents are, of course, owning up to their historical mistake and are willing to make up for it, beginning this April.
For the first time in his political career, Oloye received the shock of his life when he recently went to Agbaji – his homestead in Ilorin – to register in the just-concluded voter registration as people who traditionally would troop out to chant his praise were nowhere to be found. He was snubbed by his very traditional supporters, underscoring the fact that Kwarans have come of age and have made up their mind to unshackle themselves from the years of slavery.
Another terrible first in his political career are the confrontations, one of which took place during a recent Jum’at Service at the Ilorin Central Mosque, between him and the Islamic establishment who have kicked against the immorality of him wanting to impose his daughter on the suffering masses.
The man can no longer attend this mosque as he did arrogantly in the past. The myriad press statements issued by different pressure groups within and outside the Ilorin Emirate also show clearly that the game is up for the Sarakis – whether father, son or daughter.
Again, the claim in a newspaper editorial that Saraki Jnr is the jewel of the state politics also runs foul of the feelings across the state. The people of Kwara are well abreast of the fact that the difference between Gbemisola, who is the anointed candidate of Oloye, her father and the PDP’s Abdulfatah Ahmed – who is believed to be Bukola’s candidate – is like the difference between six and half a dozen.
Besides, the so-called bickering within this family is seen by most Kwarans as sheer deception, conceived to hoodwink the unwary while they perfect Gbemisola’s ascendance. But the people are wiser, and are watching. Or, how do you explain the fact that the newly-bought branded vehicles bearing Gbemisola’s campaign insignias were first taken to the Kwara Government House?
And, anybody who still believes that Bukola’s interest in Ahmed (who hails from Kwara South) is to press home his respect for zoning and equality should go back to the voting pattern at the just-concluded national convention of the PDP.
Delegates from Kwara, most of them cronies seeking political patronage from the governor, voted overwhelmingly against zoning. That is despite the fact that our governor had committed himself to the consensus arrangement, which was meant to ensure that zoning is respected.
Far from the outright lies and dummies often sold in the media, Kwara remains one of the most disadvantaged states in Nigeria in terms of infrastructure and human development. Anybody wanting to know the true situation of things in the state should take an unbiased trip to Kwara to assess the state of the roads, health and educational institutions, especially in primary and secondary schools.
A travel between Ilorin in Kwara Central and Baruten in Kwara North (to and fro) now lasts about 10 nightmarish hours (about the same time to travel between Lagos and Maiduguri in Borno State!). The disrepair state of the roads is indescribable.
The situation in Kwara South is just as bad, if not worse. Thousands of school pupils in Kwara still sit on bare floor to learn. People still go to streams – yes, the same streams polluted by cows – to fetch their drinking water. Education is nothing to write home about in the state.
Or, how do you convince a student of the Kwara State University (KWASU) whose parents cough out N150, 000 as tuition fee to rally round the same people who seek to take education off the reach of the common people?
So, where is the excitement to dump Saraki Snr, who precariously brought Kwara down this catastrophic path and made every Kwaran a laughing stock, and replace him with another Saraki as godfather whose eight years as governor would only be remembered for sheer propaganda and continued, modernised suppression of the people?
* Mustapha, a university student, lives in Agbaji, Ilorin, Kwara State.

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