GOVERNOR ABDULRAHMAN AND THE POLITICS OF INSECURITY IN KWARA
An African proverb goes: “When the drumbeat changes, the dancer must change his steps.” In other words, a wise leader accepts responsibility and adjusts, rather than blaming others when things go wrong.
In Kwara today, insecurity has become a harsh reality. A reality that has stirred deep conversations and concerns among residents and indigenes at home and abroad. To outsiders, it may look like a “film trick” that a state once sought after as a safe haven for relocation from troubled parts of Nigeria is now driving people away. Sadly, Kwarans are leaving their homes behind. Insecurity is forcing people off their farmlands, businesses, houses, and communities, leaving them at the mercy of bandits. These criminal elements are ravaging the Northern and Southern senatorial districts of the state. If two out of three districts in a state are under siege, can we truly say the entire state has not been surrendered to criminality?
How did we get here?
Earlier last year, reports emerged from various groups and media outlets about the infiltration of bandits into Kwara State. Instead of sanctioning an investigation into the veracity of those reports, Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq chose to look away. Worse still, his appointees, media hirelings, and sycophantic apologists went after the messengers—discrediting, cursing, and blackmailing them into silence.
A governor who truly understands governance would have known that such reports constitute valuable intelligence—intelligence that ought to be queried, examined, and acted upon. Through that, threats could have been detected early, and investigations supported. Unfortunately, Governor Abdulrahman has repeatedly failed to govern with research, findings, and foresight that protect and promote the interests of the people he swore to serve. Disappointingly, Kwara today has a governor who seems more like a recluse, unwilling or unable to strengthen government institutions for systematic governance.
Governor Abdulrahman’s reactive tendencies have diminished creativity and effectiveness within his cabinet. He runs a “one-man-show” government. For him, governance seems to mean white elephant projects, scraping roads that only require spot patching, and attending uninvited events for optics. Those much-publicized structures he claimed would attract foreign investors have not attracted a single local investor, let alone foreign ones. And truthfully, would any serious investor put money into a state where insecurity reigns unchecked? What we see instead is capital flight that has never occurred in the history of the state.
Meanwhile, several economically significant roads cry out for attention, but the governor chooses optics over strategic infrastructural development. If not for insecurity, perhaps he would have continued going from one victim’s family to another, pretending to condole with them while grinning for the cameras.
If the governor had been proactive, Kwara would not be experiencing the current wave of insecurity. The state became unsafe under Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq’s watch. And when confronted with failure, he is quick to dismiss insecurity as a “national reality.” But he is a dancer who refuses to change his steps even when the drumbeat changes. Rather than looking to good examples of states making strides in security and economic growth, he constantly searches for bad examples to justify his failures. And now, his government is deflecting from the real issue of insecurity with Saraki’s name, after the elder statesman raised a concern on the state of insecurity in Kwara. Opposition and dissenting voices are governor Abdulrahman’s problem, not insecurity.
A Way Forward
Community guards have proven effective in repelling criminal infiltration in parts of the country. Baruten local government in Kwara North has already adopted this model, especially after the governor, through his spokesperson, admitted he has done his best and cannot do more. Communities should nominate trusted individuals to serve as guards, while government facilitates interoperability between these guards and formal security agencies. If una go hear and try am.
May peace return to Kwara.
~Iammanofpeace
Sulaiman Olayiwola Yusuf
