The more the years wear on, the easier it is to appreciate the humanness of political systems. Without people, there wouldn’t be aspirations and ambitions; there wouldn’t be the inimitable fact of healthy (and unhealthy) competition; there wouldn’t be depressions and laughter and stress and threats. When the barrels are fitted to fire, we are reminded that these folks are people too. If it wasn’t apparent, the folks at the shoulders of Kwara State polity are people too.
News reaching the ends of the very human nation of Nigeria is that two heads of power – one of Information and Culture, the other of Kwara State – have drawn lines in the sand and now glaring at each other from behind fortified lines. Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Info and Culture has taken one corner of the ring, and Governor Abdulrahman AbdulRazak occupies the other.
The sparks were lit when it was reported that the cordial relationship between Mr. Mohammed and Mr. AbdulRazak had soured beyond refrigeration. This has the unintended cycle of cause and effect of them slicing the state division of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and then walking away with APC faction pies.
In perspective, the governor’s faction (with the State party Deputy Chairman, Alhaji Abdullahi Samari, at its head) accused the State party Chairman, Alhaji Bashir Bolarinwa (representing the Minister’s faction) of fiscal irresponsibility and other unmentionables that run against the nobility of the party.
In response, the Minister’s faction called attention to the excellent handling of the 2019 elections and challenged the opposition to find a fault. True to form, they further labelled the misgivings of the other faction petty, childish and laughable – all things that the contributions of the Minister to the party’s success in the State were not. The icing on the cake, said the Minister’s side, was that the governor was not even in active communication with the party chiefs, so what gives?
The long and short of the matter is that things have fallen apart between Alhaji Lai Mohammed and Alhaji Abdulrahman AbdulRazak: cats of different coats with bloody teeth and claws, both just waiting for a bold peacemaker to give out white flags.
