By SUPO ATOBATELE

Yet again, Kwara is in the news for the wrong reason: Why would a ruling party be so determined to do itself in? The foreboding story from Kwara is the stuff of Greek tragedy, complete with all its thespian trappings!

From Otege (enough is enough) to Otunya (let’s start again), the battle for the soul of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara has started in earnest.

It is ironic that barely two years in office, Gov. Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq is again on the frontlines, but this time, he is now ranged against the rainbow coalition of party leaders which ushered him into power.

How did this party which rode to Government House on such phenomenal goodwill come to this pass? The answer may well lie in the inimitable “aloof” governance style of this poker-faced scion of the AbdulRazaq family of Ilorin.

To be sure, many of the now estranged party leaders, who literarily ‘railroaded’ the governor into Government House as against other formidable aspirants, would be gnashing their teeth while questioning their sense of judgment.

Now the chickens have come home to roost and AbdulRazaq with his collaborators in the national executive of the APC have sacked the party’s caretaker chairman in the state, Bashir Omolaja Bolarinwa, fondly called BOB.

AbdulRazaq, who was a fringe player in the politics of the state before 2015, has now become the face of the APC, courtesy of the cavalier politics of the Mai Mala Buni leadership of the party in Abuja.

Many, with the benefit of hindsight, have now come to the disturbing realisation that the man around whom was woven the Otoge Movement is not a party man. “We saw it coming”, many an analyst would say!

From little infractions, laid back snobbery and diffident indifference, AbdulRazaq was from his first day in office determined to be his own man rather than an affable party man.

Many would recall that aggrieved members of the Otoge movement had often described the AbdulRazaq government as a “one-man administration.”

They often cite the December 2019 constitution of the governor's cabinet which they said did not have the input of party leaders such as Information and Culture Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, his Transportation counterpart, Gbemi Saraki, Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo,

Alhaji LAK Jimoh, Chief Rex Olawoye, and stormy petrel of Kwara politics, Musbau Esinrogunjo, among others.

Esinrogunjo, one of the most passionate foot soldiers of the Otoge revolution, would later be arrested for allegedly threatening to kill the governor in a viral video!

That the groundswell of animosity against the governor runs deep is exemplified by the recent visit of leading lights of the party in the state to the national secretariat of the APC in Abuja over the whimsical removal of BOB, ostensibly on the grounds that the governor was not comfortable working with him!

On the eminent delegation list were Prof. Oba Abdulraheem, a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, as well as Iyiola Oyedepo, one of the quartet that launched the blistering radio campaign that saw the exit of the Abdulfatah Ahmed administration and precipitated the fall of the Saraki dynasty.

If the national executive of the APC has continued to dilly dally over its gross violation of its own constitution, it is only an indication of its withering contempt for the visiting distinguished Kwarans and indeed thousands of law abiding party faithful in the state whose case they came to present in Abuja.

It is, however, instructive that opposition voices to this tactless removal of only Bolarinwa among the 36 leaders of chapters of the party are getting louder and the battle line has clearly been drawn.

Asked at a public forum last week what the APC leaders in the state were doing to resolve the impasse, Oyedepo said: “When we get to the bridge, we will know how to cross it, but the decision to remove our chairman shall never work.

“...Gbemi (Saraki) and Lai (Mohammed), they are with us, they are fully with us. They are not with the governor.”

For AbdulRazaq, who emerged as governor on a shaky political structure, his battles on so many fronts may yet prove costly.

Many of his disappointed admirers say the governor has surrounded himself with too many fair weather politicians who tell him only what he wants to hear as opposed to the political realities on the ground.

They indeed readily cite the Ilorin-born journalist turned lawyer and politician, Kunle Suleiman, whose sole political credential is being a member of the PDP at formation in the state.

Also in the narrow circle of advisers is the shifty Senator Suleiman Ajadi who was handed the Kwara South Senatorial District seat on a platter of gold at the height of the Saraki's suzerainty in Kwara.

Today, the duo are the King'’ Horsemen defining the party’s blurred political direction in the state and pouring invectives on respected party elders who are battling to stem the drift into the abyss.

How long this drama of the absurd would last remains to be seen in the coming weeks.

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