By Adesina Soyooye
In a pronouncement comparable to dog eating dog, and likely to shock not a few people, the Minister for Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, publicly said that the past Government in Kwara State is better than the present Government.
The immediate past Government was that of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. The present is Minister Mohammed’s party, the All Progressives Cogress, APC.
Mohammed made the assertion when he dragged the Governor of Kwara State, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, in the mud.
Mohammed: …”despite all the warnings from concerned party leaders and others who had reservations about his choice, our reaction then was that no matter what, his choice was better than where we were coming from. But we were wrong.”
The Minister is from Kwara State. Both men, along with a number of others, including Gbemi Saraki, the Minister for State, Ministry of Transport, pulled an unbelievable feat in Kwara State in 2019 during the Governorship election.
Between them, they ended the decades-old stranglehold the Saraki family held on Kwara politics.
For years, seemingly unending, the Saraki family, thanks to their late patriach, Olusola Saraki, was the ultimate Kwara politics.
Nobody became anything without the endorsement of the Saraki family. He installed and “deinstalled” Kwara Governors. When he got tired of all of them, he installed his own son, Bukola, who, like him, is a Medical Doctor. Bukola was a two-time Governor of the State.
Olusola Saraki was one-time Senate Leader. Big deal. But he so arranged it that his two children, Bukola and Gbemi surpassed him.
Two of them had been Senators, one after the other. Bukola was also the Senate President.
Things went awry for the Saraki family when the Senior Saraki wanted his daughter, Gbemi, to succeed his son, Bukola, as the Governor. The junior Saraki resisted that, calling it morally wrong. He chose somebody else to succeed him and, for the first time, Saraki senior was given a bloody nose. He never recovered from that shock of defeat until he died.
Having learnt from that defeat that the Saraki family is “defeatable”, Lai Mohammed, Abdulrazaq and a few others pulled together a coalition which swept the Saraki political family out of power. The coalition had the backing of Gbemi, who never forgave his brother, Bukola, for denying her the Governorship seat.
For the first time, the Saraki political family lost power in Kwara State. But the family must be having a good laugh now.
The coalition which drove it out of power is in tatters. The members are at one another’s throat.
Between the Governor and the two Ministers in Abuja – Lai Mohammed and Gbemi Saraki – and a number of other stakeholders, there is no love lost. They hardly agree on anything.
The result: the APC in Kwara is factionised – the Governor’s faction and the Lai Mohammed’s faction.
Lamenting the situation on Saturday, Minister Mohammed said it was a huge mistake to have made Abdulrazaq Governor in 2019. He said by making him Governor, the State entered a “one chance bus.”
The Minister spoke in Illorin while commissioning a new Secretariat of his own faction of the party, led by Bashir Bolarinwa.
Regretting the Government of Abdulrazaq, Minister Mohammed said:
“It has gotten to the point where we have to speak out. We have been pushed to the wall, and we have no choice than to come out and expose their lies and pretensions.”
Mohammed disclosed they were warned that Abdulrazaq was not a product to take to the market. They did not listen. They were told it was a mistake. They did not agree until it was late.
Mohammed: “It was immediately after the Governor emerged as the party’s candidate that it dawned on us that we have entered one chance.
“But despite all the warnings from concerned party leaders and others who had reservations about his choice, our reaction then was that no matter what, his choice was better than where we were coming from. But we were wrong.”
With the situation in the State, the likelihood of Governor Abdulrazaq securing a second term ticket seems remote. If he does, the likelihood of his winning is remote, unless the APC at the National level weighs in to make peace between the two waring factions. Otherwise?
The toppled PDP looks good to get back to office.
