Just like the February 25th election is now history, March 18, the new date of the gubernatorial and state assembly elections, is also around the corner and would also become history in the nick of time. One significant thing however is that we cannot afford to get it wrong in our dear state, Kwara. Citizens must vote right and vote wisely.

The March 18th poll is a choice between maladministration and good governance. Never must we allow darkness to triumph over light! Any mistake could cost us a whole lot; something fatal than we had experienced in the past. That’s why for me, I choose AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq (Mr. Capacity) over the assemblage of desperate and disgruntled politicians.

Kwarans, we must never forget where we came from. Four years ago, we liberated ourselves from the hands of desperate, arrogant and self-serving politicians who had arrogated our state and all its resources to themselves. They had no regard for human dignity. They failed in governance and administration.

We must never forget that we came from an era where civil servants did not get their salaries and entitlements as and when due. We must never forget that we came from an era where senior citizens who are retirees did not get their pensions and gratuities. We must never forget that we came from a regime where the water question could not be tackled head-on and our people were at the mercy of tankers to access something as basic as water. We must never forget we came from a regime that was rocked with all kinds of financial scandals, misappropriation, lack of value for money and widespread corrupt practices that drew our state several years back. It was under this same era that UBEC grant worth billions of naira was diverted, taking our basic education many years backwards.

Kwarans, we must never forget all these atrocities and scenarios as we approach the gubernatorial and state assembly elections to make an all-important decision. As we go to the polls, we must also bear in mind the landmark transformation and remarkable change that have happened across sectors of the state.

Starting from what was practically ground zero, AbdulRazaq has taken our state to enviable heights. From a state with no functional tractor in 2019, Kwara is now recognised as one of the rice producing states in the country due to his major investments in agriculture and support for farmers. From a state with no functional ambulance in 2019, Kwara was applauded for its exemplary role in managing COVID-19 and is now the state that houses the largest Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in the whole of central Nigeria. The state now has ventilators. Our Isolation Centre is renovated and refurbished to a standard taste. Our long-abandoned Oxygen Plant in Sobi is now up and running. All these are results of prudence and capacity.

With the quantum of works this administration has done in the last four years, there is no ward in Kwara State today where it doesn’t have a project. The administration has established bold government presence in all the wards constituting the state. Young people and women are given recognition like never before in the state. The same state where youths were relegated to nothing and/or as ‘good boys’ is now where they get million naira grants to boost their entrepreneurial desires. This stands commendable! And this is the same fashion in which the government has been supporting every segment and demography of the society.

One thing I will never forget to add is the conducive political environment this administration has created. Opposition and dissenting voices are not been silenced or muzzled. It was so bad under the previous regime that opposition elements dare not attend events that the governing personalities attend. Everything has changed. People now have the platforms to ventilate their views without nursing the fear of being chased about by good boys.

The political culture has also changed drastically. Yesterday, you had to practically crawl and genuflect for the hegemons to grow in politics and government. Today, nobody does that. Political offices have been largely demystified. You now have the sense that political office holders are more or less like you, and that you can also be one in the nearest future.

Kwarans, we must never forget. We must allow the consolidation of this transformative foundation that has already been laid. On Saturday, March 18, we should all come out en masse to vote Mr. Capacity AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq. He is the man who has shown capacity where others failed woefully.

Adelodun writes from Oro, Kwara State

When Bukola Saraki realized that his several propaganda to pit Kwarans against Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq’s performing government didn’t work, he directed all his followers to start begging Kwarans to vote for the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar if they can’t vote for the party’s governorship candidate, Abdullahi Yaman. He said the former’s victory was more important than the latter’s. The former Senate President didn’t just say this, he has discovered that well-meaning Kwarans are in full support of AbdulRazaq’s second-term bid.

However, Kwarans should be very careful and shouldn’t fall for Saraki’s new gimmick. Even though Saraki has failed to tell his followers why he prefers Atiku’s victory to Yaman’s, some of us know his reason. Saraki knows that Yaman can’t win AbdulRazaq at the polls, therefore, if Atiku wins he is going to help him claim either by force or by raping the court. Currently, Saraki’s boys have been meeting unsuspecting Kwarans and begging them to vote for Atiku if they can’t vote for Yaman. That’s why you will barely see them campaign for Yaman in the last few weeks.

This essayist urges Kwarans not to fall for Saraki’s evil plans against them and the progressive state. The steady development and unprecedented achievements of the present administration have been giving Saraki and his retrogressive camp a serious headache and they are sad that Governor AbdulRazaq is doing what they couldn’t do for the people in their 16 years of governance in Kwara state.

From Saraki’s campaign rallies and his very recent interview on Sobi FM, it is glaring that he does not mean well for Kwara state and Kwarans. Saraki said the AbdulRazaq-led government had failed. If I may ask him, a government that pays salaries and promotes workers has failed? A government that repairs roads and renovates schools has failed? A government that provides potable water for its people has failed? A government that provides good teaching materials and introduced KwaraLEARN has failed? A government that creates jobs and pays the 30,000 minimum wages has failed?

Saraki is a sadist and he doesn’t mean well for Kwara state. His return will be a disaster for our dear state. May Saraki not happen to us again. If not for the Otoge movement in 2019, it is only God that knows where Kwara would have been by now. Bukola and his protege Abdulfatah Ahmed crumbled the state. Workers were owed months’ salaries, no potable water for the people, the structures of schools were terrible as students studied under the trees, no learning materials in classrooms, pensions, and gratuities were not paid, and hospitals were not hospitable. These are what Saraki calls achievements that AbulRazaq has not replicated which made him a failure, according to Saraki.

The Otoge movement gave us a brilliant, smart, and progressive AbdulRazaq. In all the areas Saraki and Abdulfatah had failed, AbdulRazaq has done well in the areas. Therefore, dear Kwarans, the 2023 presidential election and national assembly elections are this Saturday, February 25, let’s cast our votes for all the APC’s candidates and most importantly, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. It’s our massive votes for Tinubu and other candidates that can stall Saraki’s evil plots against us and our dear state.

Abdulqaudri Mahmud writes from Ilorin East LGA, Zango Ward, Ilorin Kwara state

With a terrible record of administration and governance over the years, Bukola Saraki and his deserted house Kwara PDP have nothing significant to campaign with. What they have been showing times and again is desperation for whipping up sentiments in the people, a strategy that has always been failing.

Saraki superintended over the regimes of widespread corruption, disservice to the people, incompetence, impunity, lawlessness and mismanagement of public funds in Kwara State. Just yesterday, the story of his Personal Assistant as Governor of Kwara State, Abdul Adama, was awash in the media space. The fellow was reported by the EFCC to have signed for and laundered over N12 billion public funds belonging to the Kwara State Government between 2003 and 2011 when his boss was in power. He jumped bail and is now at large.

In a similar fashion, we also learnt from the forensic audit report by the SSAC that between 2011 and 2019, about N11.9 billion Kwara Government funds was looted, diverted and mismanaged. Billions of naira not tied to a single government project was also withdrawn in cash few days to the 2019 general election. These are the regimes supervised by Saraki; so far the worst in the history of the state by consensus.

They sunk public funds into projects without the state benefitting a dime. Where their cronies are not yielding the dividends at the expense of the state, the state is servicing huge debts on such investments. Examples are their oft-touted Shonga Farms, Kwara Mall, Mandate III Estate, and so on. These are prestige projects that are beautiful on the outside but terrible in the inside because they carry stories that shatter the hearts. Kwara State is still servicing debts on many of these projects which Bukola Saraki usually comes home to boast about. Such a dummy.

Away from that, it was so bad that under them, the people of the state had no water to drink; salaries were not paid as and when due; records of owings in pensions and gratuities abound; basic education was nothing to write home about; our people were dying like chickens because they had no access to good healthcare services. Poverty was widespread and democratic dividends were only open to political sycophants, loyalists and praise singers.

All these heart-rending stories have changed under the incumbent Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq. He has cleared the rot and mess. Salary payment is now consistent across board. Basic education is getting new investments at all times. Ditto to primary healthcare, water, among others. Our people who are mostly farmers, traders, entrepreneurs are being supported like never before with grants and business loans (non-interest), running into several millions of naira through KWASSIP. Government has now been made open and accessible to all, with young people and women given fair chance to sit on the decision table.

Amid all these, the Sarakis are overwhelmed. They have nothing to campaign with. They have now resorted to desperately whipping up sentiments. They started by whipping up the regional sentiments of Kwara North. That has however fallen like a pack of cards. At least this is evident in the street credibility the Governor enjoyed during his campaign tours in the district, with first class monarchs endorsing him and testifying to his great strides and achievements in their region after development has been made to elude them by the Saraki dynasty.

The same way we also saw how Saraki moved in Kwara North at nights like a thief with a stealthy mission, genuflecting to beg stakeholders of the region and seeking forgiveness for their years of absolute misrule which was flatly rejected by the stakeholders. He even went as desperate as promising the monarchs in the region a rotation in the chairmanship of the Kwara State Traditional Council; a move that has been seen as targeted at the Emir of Ilorin. To further show his desperation, he was in Moro, promising them that if PDP emerges, they would be cut out of Ilorin Emirate. These have been the divisive, desperate strategies being promoted by Saraki to win at all costs, but they are failing and turning against him. It’s now evident that Kwara North is for APC despite Saraki cherry picking his figurehead candidate Yaman Abdullahi from the region.

Another desperation by Saraki and his deserted house Kwara PDP was the use of propaganda. Saraki personally encouraged his footsoldiers whom we call fake boys to spread rumours, untruth and propaganda against the government of AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq. Again, this is not working out as the people continue to debunk and disregard their propagandists.

The latest desperation by Saraki and his PDP was blaming Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq for the naira scarcity. How inconsistent could Saraki be as a human being? He is such a chameleon like his boss Atiku Abubakar who appointed him as SA. These were the same people egging on the CBN to carry on with the currency swap policy that has created untold hardship for the people. They particularly sought for no further extension of the deadline for spending the old notes and even spoke against the arrest of Godwin Emefiele whose policy was threatening national security. Now, they are shedding crocodile tears and making u-turn like they care for the masses.

Does Saraki think the people of Kwara are stupid not to know his inconsistent stance on the issue? At first the SA (Bukola Saraki) and his boss (Atiku Abubakar) thought they would get political gains from the naira scarcity, so they supported it. It is now backfiring and they had to make such a quick volte face. The people have noted these inconsistencies. Remember that was how Atiku also did during the Deborah blasphemy crisis.

If Saraki thinks his dynasty would return because of the naira scarcity, he better wakes up. The people of Kwara are politically conscious. They know who is responsible for what. Here in Kwara, we will consider salary payment for civil servants, pension and gratuities payment for retirees, state of basic education, healthcare, water, social interventions, empowerment, road construction. These are the yardsticks that will form our decisions. We will never forget that tankers were used to bring water for us in our communities under their regime. We will never forget the gerigedi salaries and non-payment of pensions and gratuities under administrations. The current administration of Governor AbdulRazaq so far has changed the narrative. The people will reciprocate the kind gesture and developmental strides of the Governor come March 11.

Adelodun writes from Oro, Kwara State