By David Titiloye
While the media space is agog with the excitement of Nigerians about the victory of Sen. Ademola Adeleke at the just concluded Osun state gubernatorial elections, political strategists and students of political history must look away from the frenzy to analyze the patterns which foretells what it to come in 2023.
Although Gov. Gboyega Oyetola was rightfully voted out by Osun state voters due to his overwhelming failure as a state governor, the overall excitement of Nigerians across all states about the outcome of the election signals a collective will of the people to reject the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a party in 2023.
Having carefully observed the patterns and sequence of activities that culminated into the failed reelection bid of Gov. Gboyega Oyetola, I couldn’t but notice how it bears a direct semblance to the path which the Kwara state governor, AbdulRazaq AbdulRahman is presently treading. This perhaps justifies why his followers have become jittery seeing the outcome of the election polls.
I have good reason to believe that Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq is also aware of the similarities between his style of governance and that of Gboyega Oyetola hence the reason he particularly took interest in that election and contributed both his material and human resources especially seeing how his media aides forgot their primary assignments in Kwara state and went on a fake news spree in reporting the activities of the Osun state election.
Hitherto, the APC is renowned for failure and subjecting Nigerians to unprecedented level of hardship and suffering, I make bold to say that Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq is on the elite list of the most incompetent APC governors in Nigeria today, he’s far worse than even Gov. Gboyega Oyetola.
Despite the increasing debt profile of Kwara state, the governor can’t boast of a noteworthy project he has commissioned after 3 years of being in office, the road infrastructure in the state has become significantly worse that #KwaraPotholesChallenge became a trend on twitter few weeks ago.
I used to think Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq is a religious bigot, perhaps he is, with the way the state almost sank into the abyss of religious intolerance with his handling of the Christian populace but the recent treatment of Hajj pilgrims made me realize that incompetence knows no religion.
We all talk about Oyetola’s fall out with his predecessor, Rauf Aregbesola as one of the factors that led to his loss but Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has also distinguished himself as a political suzerain with the treatment of those who brought him into government in 2019, an action which led to the emergence of a third force party in Kwara state today. Those who stayed behind with him were later made to regret it as he took his political hegemony a step further by denying them a fair chance at the party primary and only handing the party ticket to his stooges, an action which earned him the title of a “mediocre” by a sitting senator in his party. Through brazen disregard for fairness, those who outsmarted him by winning their primaries had the tickets withdrawn from them particularly in Kwara South.
He has no cordial relationship with all the Ministers from the state despite being in the same party, Kwara state literally became a laughing stock in national dailies at some point, no thanks to their constant attacks against each other. None of them could even attend their party primary but who will blame them seeing as some aspirants didn’t even know the venue of the primaries they were contesting for and ward executives had no knowledge of the delegates from their constituency.
I have never seen a one-term governor display such brazen disregard for due process and order until AbdulRahman happened to Kwara state.
A recent event that finally signalled his dwindling popularity even as a state governor is how he was disgraced at both the Eid ground at the just concluded sallah celebration and Durbar ceremony in Ilorin.
If history is anything to learn from, it is safe to conclude that by 2023 Kwarans will reject Gov. AbdulRazaq AbdulRahman’s reelection bid.
