By Abdullateef Ishowo
That many serving commissioners, Special Advisers, Assistants and many other emergency political appointees refer to Governor AA as “daddy” whenever they interact with him is an indication of how governance has been brought to disrepute in Kwara. Since they all see him as their benefactor, who in spite of their emptiness, generously dashed them such sensitively important positions in government, governance has for more than three and a half years taken flight from Kwara. ‘Our daddy’ is therefore living in denial, as he has been in the capacity of a sole administrator; hence, the serial appointments of baby–commissioners and SAs in the state.
If you are in a denial, you are trying to protect yourself from a truth that is too painful for you to accept at the moment. In most occasions, people living in denial withdraw themselves from others, so as to relieve themselves of the burden of reality. Whenever a withdrawn person is forced to express himself, he fumbles and wobbles. Such is the case of the O to ge head-boy in Kwara.
When I saw the shabbily scripted and poorly edited video of the purported Okada riders burning O su wa caps, signifying their rejection of PDP in Kwara, I laughed hilariously. As it can only mean one thing, perpetual denial of reality. It is very cheap! And detecting the absence of reality in the video is as easy as detecting the sincerity or otherwise of a child. It shows lack of capacity in the people around the governor. They are too incompetent to know that the pseudo sordid and theatrical nature of the video is an eloquent testimony to the heavy presence of clowns in the government. They’ve turned governance to the production of movies poorly edited by amateur Nollywood actors.
That the riders, representing an infinitesimal portion of their union, were inconspicuously gathered in a corner celebrating the cash out from our dear daddy made me doubt their genuineness as true members of Okada riders in Kwara State.
With what they’re currently going through, no reasonable transporter will support the government of ‘our daddy’. Is it the jetty increase of their annual taxes from N9,360 per annum (N30.00 per day) during Maigida administration to about N31,200 (N100 per day) within our daddy’s three and a half years in government they’re not tired of? Or how daddy callously connived with the neck-cutting cooperative firm to shortchange the Korope drivers with the highly exorbitant N3.7m higher purchase fee for a single korope-vehicle as against N2m original price? No wonder, our daddy hugely compensated owner of the firm with a prestigious state award, ignoring many other qualified ones.
Let ‘our daddy’ be told that consequences of self-denialism is self-destruct. This is evidently shown in the life and death of Okonkwo in Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”, who parades himself a hero outwardly but a coward inwardly.
‘Our big daddy’ should therefore be wary of self-destruction via self-denialism, as evident in the end of the governments of such despots as Mobutu Sese Seko, Paul Kagame, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, etc
Abdullateef Ishowo
is Director Media and Communications PDP Presidential Campaign Management Council,
Kwara state.
