By Abdulyekeen, Mohd Bashir
There is something rather amusing about the argument that Bukola Saraki is suddenly fighting for political relevance in Kwara. For about 7 years now, Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has spent a remarkable portion of his political life chasing Saraki’s shadow. Yet after the years in office, he has still not come close to matching the former Senate President in intellect, political organisation, leadership and, most importantly, the understanding of democratic politics. Saraki has been out of government in Kwara for years and still remains a reference point in the state’s political conversation. So, who exactly is struggling for relevance?
The growing closeness between the G-15/TOP and the PDP is something that has been giving the Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq’s camp headache and they should really be worried. These are not people who woke up one morning and suddenly decided to realign themselves with the former governor. They were part of the same APC structure that produced AbdulRazaq. They saw the government from inside. They participated in the politics that brought it to power. If some of them are now finding their way back towards Saraki and the PDP, perhaps the more honest question is not what Saraki is doing to regain relevance, but what AbdulRazaq has done to make former allies look elsewhere.
There is nothing superior to a man’s ego. For the G-15/ TOP to look at the man they once opposed and decide that working with Saraki again is preferable to continuing with AbdulRazaq tells its own story. It is difficult to convince Kwarans that all these people suddenly became bad politicians while the man at the centre of the government remains perfect.
Loyalty is no longer the currency of APC politics in Kwara. Interest is. Many of the people standing with the Governor today are not necessarily there because they are loyal to Abdulrahman AbdulRazaq. They are there because they have something to gain from remaining close to power. That is politics, of course. But let us not dress interest up as loyalty.
Who, then, is more desperate to retain power? Is it the G-15/TOP that is questioning the direction of a government they once supported, or the Governor who wants to replace the party’s internal competition with his own anointed candidate? A Governor who cannot allow a genuinely competitive process within his own party but wants to determine who succeeds him should perhaps be the last person accusing others of political desperation.
The truth is that AbdulRazaq’s greatest political gamble may not be the opposition. It may be his belief that his own political preference can be transferred to another man simply because he occupies the Government House today. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu does not see AbdulRazaq as some indispensable Queen on the Kwara chessboard. With or without him, the President knows how to navigate Kwara politics. To describe AbdulRazaq’s political position as some guaranteed federal insurance is therefore a little delusional. Whatever calculations are being made in Abuja, the will of Kwarans will still matter at the ballot.
APC should also look carefully at the people it is taking into the 2027 contest. Take the three senatorial candidates.
In Kwara South, Lekan Adewoye is a candidate whose public personality and record have raised questions. A quick search of his name on Google brings up reports and allegations concerning fraud running into millions of naira. Punch Newspapers reported that the EFCC arraigned him and his companies over alleged stealing and obtaining property by false pretence involving $680,622.65. The case concerns construction materials supplied by a German company between 2013 and 2014. He pleaded not guilty, so this is not a conviction. But it is certainly a pattern that must not be overlooked. And what exactly has he done in Kwara South to make the people believe that he deserves to represent them? If his strongest qualification is that he received the ticket from the man who handed it to him, then the relationship may be more with AbdulRazaq than with the people of Kwara South. A senator should not owe his political existence to a Governor more than he owes it to his constituents.
In Kwara Central, we have Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, a former Governor seeking another political role after eight years in which, by every reasonable measure, the state has struggled economically and developmentally. He presents himself as a political godfather, yet one of the criticisms surrounding his politics is the deliberate prevention of strong and independent political figures from emerging around him; no ranking senator, no independent power centre. Kwara Central will not suddenly lower the bar because somebody wants another political appointment.
Then there is the Kwara North candidate, a former director of a government agency who, until the emergence of this ticket, remained relatively unknown to many Kwarans, both online and offline. Where is the grassroots support? Where is the political connection with the people? Where is the record that makes the candidate more than simply another beneficiary of a ticket handed down from above?
The irony is that the same people now accusing the G-15 of disloyalty are the ones who have made loyalty increasingly transactional. When political interests are protected, everyone is loyal.
The PDP has become a safe haven for members of the G-15 because they have apparently come to the conclusion that whatever problems they had with Saraki are preferable to what they have experienced under AbdulRazaq. They have made their choice. And whether one agrees with them or not, they have every moral right to make it, if they believe their interests are better protected elsewhere, why should anyone expect them to remain in a house where they no longer feel welcome?
Saraki, for all the criticisms that can be made against him, has demonstrated something AbdulRazaq has struggled to demonstrate: the ability to maintain political relationships beyond the people currently useful to him. He built alliances. He created political structures. He governed. He went to Abuja. He returned. He lost elections. Yet he did not burn every bridge behind him.
AbdulRazaq spent many years of political battles which have left him with fewer friends and more former allies than when he started. That is the part the propaganda cannot explain.
President Tinubu can work with whoever emerges from Kwara. The President’s political future does not begin and end with AbdulRazaq. If APC loses Kwara, it will not mean Tinubu has lost Nigeria. The people of Kwara will simply have made their choice. Kwara APC should be more worried about its candidates than about Saraki’s alleged desperation.
•Abdulyekeen, Mohd Bashir, a Kwara-born political analyst, writes from Ilorin