The Speaker, Kwara State House of Assembly, Hon Abdulrazaq Atunwa, a lawyer by profession, served in the immediate past administration as Commissioner for Finance and was at one point a gubernatorial aspirant.
 One of the faithful loyalists of the immediate past governor, Senator Bukola Saraki, Atunwa, in this interview reviews political currents in the state flowing from the last general elections. According to him the state rejected the ACN because the party based its campaigns on ethnic considerations further affirming that the people of the state were not ready to surrender their commonwealth to political stakeholders based in Lagos.
Excerpts:

The Kwara House of Assembly does not have a minority leader. Why?
Rule 20 Kwara House of House of Assembly states that the minority leader shall be a member nominated from a minority party. To qualify for that, there must be at least, two other members of the same party. The reason that rule was brought about was when there was one honourable member from UNCP and ANPP at the time both UNCP and ANPP were fighting to become minority leader of the House and each of the parties only had one member each.

So, it was a big tussle. So, in order to avoid that turmoil, the House then promulgated the rule to say for you to qualify to have a minority leader, you have to have one member supported by two other members of the same party. You will agree with me that that makes sense; otherwise you keep having the same problem if there is a reoccurrence of one member or two members.

What's your reaction to claims of the growing popularity of the ACN in Kwara State?
Nothing could be farther from the truth. The ACN is only opportunistic about the entire election process. What Dele Belgore did was to play an ethnic card, a sectarian card and sectarian politics.

It was clear that the PDP being a fair-minded party, opted for zoning, because we believe that every part of Kwara State should have a sense of belonging and since Kwara Central had been in the highest position for a long while, we believe there ought to be zoning. And between North and South, they conceded it to Kwara South. So, PDP conceded governorship to Kwara South and I was the first to withdraw from being an aspirant.

Now, ACN and Dele Belgore thought what they could do was to come up with the ethnicity issue of being an Ilorin person. He said it's quite clear because I'm from Ilorin and played to the ethnicity of Ilorin people and said I am an Ilorin man. He said ACPN was producing an Ilorin female. He played to the gallery to say I'm Ilorin male. He didn't say I'm Dele Belgore, or this is ACN programme or policy, but said I'm from Ilorin, so vote for me. If you look at the voting pattern in the last election most of his votes were from Ilorin, Kwara Central. Even within Kwara Central, from my local government, he performed very poorly, ditto for Moro LGA.

That showed he was simply appealing to Ilorin ethnicity. They failed in all other local governments because that appeal was not across board and lost to ethnicity and male chauvinism cards.

ACN is a failed party in Kwara State and the party is even dead because many of its members are now disillusioned and have returned or come to the PDP. Why? They've realized that the ACN's plan is to mortgage future of Kwara to Lagos because the party and its leaders in Kwara state are being funded from Lagos.  Today, PDP is the only party standing because we meet the needs of the people in uplifting their socio-economic standing.

It is generally implied that the Kwara Assembly is a rubber stamp of the executive. Do you agree?
(Chuckles) Give us a chance, we have just started. But in any event, I don't believe Kwara State has ever witnessed any rubber stamp assembly. As far as I am concerned, members of the sixth legislature were vibrant, active and alive to their duties.

Members of the seventh assembly have the same qualities. We recently screened the commissioners. Cogent and interesting questions were put to the nominees. But we believe that the legislature, although independent, must work harmoniously with the executive in order for the executive to be able to execute those programmes which it promised the populace during election. We are not there to serve as hindrance, but to foster development. But we will not compromise our independence, integrity and functions in order to achieve that.

The ACN has alleged that the state government executed the last general elections in the state with a loan. How do you react to this?

The governorship standard bearer of the ACN, Dele Belgore, is a senior member in the legal profession. He made some fundamental errors and continues to make them. It will take him time to learn to become a graduate in the school of politics. The allegation that the state government borrowed money to finance the election is completely libelous. I can't put it any lower than that.

There is no iota of truth in the allegation. I was commissioner for Finance before the election and there was no where we borrowed money to finance any election and no government fund was used to fund PDP election whatsoever. On the contrary, referring to the bond application, for example, the bond has not been completely drawn up till now.

As it is now as the Speaker of Kwara House, I've not found any incident at all where government has borrowed money for one purpose and used it for another purpose.