By Faruq Atofarati

Yakubu Danladi is becoming everything in Kwara State—most interesting is his newfound forte. He is becoming a dreamer. To this essayist, he is a literary student. A protagonist of Shakespeare’s “We are such stuff. As dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” In the Tempest.

To the Kwara State House of Assembly, he is a title pretender. At hangouts, he is a representative of the governor. To Kwara State in general, he is a lazy placeholder. His seat does not exist. And to the Kwara North, he is the biggest dreamer. Recently, he became an occasion’s MC. As if on a cause to fan the ember of Kwara North’s agenda. But that dream is wet. As such, it will make no flame.

Or this has nothing to do with the embattled and gridlocked Kwara State House of Assembly. The vocal political animals that stutter in the face of incompetence. Political animals that only seem to be hitting giant strides of political inactivity. Under the leadership of Danladi, they may moan for their forfeited dreams.

Danladi may not understand what is at stake for Kwarans. Kwara North cut the poles waving the flags of champion. They burned the stomping feet of conquerors—even of their own brothers. So the anthems gushing out for Kwara North’s agenda today are a performative masturbation of an already sealed political fate.

Did Danladi not shrug at the trembling voices of his brothers? Did he not halt the flowing rivers of emotions of his brothers, who were close to victory—the powerful seat of “speaker” that stagnated the conquest of his brother’s governorship ambition, retiring his own for acquaintances?

But he bundled Abdulrahman up and chose him over his own brother from the North in an acrobatic stunt of impending regret when Abdulrahman’s scrotum blinded him from seeing that his region had been left behind. But how northern is he?

He was stingy with his speakership ambition but overtly generous in generalising his governorship ambition as Kwara North’s. With a rumbling stomach, he ate his cake. He was selfish. But today, he wants to impregnate the air with Kwara North’s agenda. He claimed the North had a dream. There is no dream.

A politician who is so blank on ideas only came up with “dreams” for his people has political will that has faded away. A politician who only seduces his listeners by ending a “long-term” ambition with “dreams” is terracing a broken political future. But the case of Danladi is interesting—he has mistaken political delusion for dreams. A dream bigger than the bearer.

It is under the leadership of “Kwara North” that the funeral of LGA was conducted. He did not bark. And he did not bite. But he found a mentor in Ododo of Kogi state—the way he is helping Yahaya Bello play hide and seek. He wants to repay his master. So he is displaying a stunning lack of decorum. Singing of dreams.

The politician dies who attached his wants to dreams. Announcing to the world you have a dream is an epic mistake. In a political context. Danladi knew this when he generalised his ambition. Every politician knows this. Rudolf Okonkwo opined that “forlorn hope is the only baptism that leads to exogenous laughter.” But for a dreamer fighting for the incumbent’s embrace, no victory shall follow them.

Dreamers will always dream. As if Rudolf knew, “it is nothing but a requiem-high mass of eerie riddles.” Martin Luther King said he had a dream, too. Are Americans not judged by their skin colours today? Is racism dead? certainly not! But can we also say the dream did not come to pass?

Let’s forget Kwara North’s dream. Even the South knows when to wake up. There is no dream in the sahel. It is just a selfish positioning.