I read the article of my father, the most revered Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo using his personal measurements of maximum and minimum governments to compare the administration of Mal. AbdulRazak AbdulRaham with the past leadership of the state.

Typically of Akogun, he didn’t disappoint his readers, like his usual self, he threw out his venom against the personalities in this government using very shallow and baseless indices.

Akogun is an Iconoclast, who believes that no one can challenge him to any intellectual debate.

Kwara State to him is a desert bereaved of the intelligentsia. 

That one can talk and write doesn’t make intelligent, the empty and the politically frustrated souls are often the loudest in the political arena.

No one can claim to love Kwara State more than any of us who joined hands to push the past government away, for us to have remained resilient and resolute to that point that we demolished that old fashioned tyrannical leadership of the Sarakis and their cronies, we all deserved medals including Akogun.

However, our expectations after that revolution differ and that is probably the reason for some personal grudges against the personality of Mal. AbdulRazak AbdulRaman. 

This is a story for another day!

Back to the points raised by Akogun, it may seem to him that the governor hasn’t done much because he has allowed personal grudge, sentiment and nocturnal hatred to becloud his sense of analysis. 

If Akogun can equate the attack of Laderin House in 2003 and demolition of Ile-Arugbo in 2019 to the same, even when a competent court of law has upheld the action of the government has valid and proper, then we have more problems to deal with in Kwara than we know. 

While the attack on Ile-Laderin was to damage the legacy of a family and destroy their historical identity, the demolition of Ile-Arugbo was to reclaim the stolen property of the state. Ile-Arugbo stood for an object of oppression and indecent representation of our darkest era.

I was reading the so-called paper of Akogun with an open mind to see where he will mention that the previous governments were paying salaries on percentage and destroying the fabrics of the normal reward of service by ripping the employees of their wages, that this government haven’t only been able to pay them promptly and even pay the arrears being owed by the past government.  

I was expecting him to say the government is trying to reduce the level of poverty on average income earners, unlike the previous government. 

Akogun also refused to accept that there’s no governor who has invested so heavily in youth development and women empowerment like AbdulRazak AbdulRahman. I was hoping that he will mention that the government policies on poverty eradication and youth engagement have reduced the incidence of thuggery and youth restiveness in the state. 

Under Maigida and Saraki political era, the youths are not only branded as good boys, but they are also empowered to carry on arsonist assaults on innocent citizens unabatedly. For anyone to have said this government and the previous government is the same is not only bad but destructive. Akogun didn’t mention anything that look like Kwaraprenuer where the youths are offered grants to equip them to run their business idea, this was never a token as some were given up to 3million Naira. I also want to say the Owo-Isowo and Owo-Arugbo are part of several other policies to liberate our people from the shackles of poverty inflicted on the masses by this same previous administration that Akogun as branded as the same with this.

Akogun summarily dismisses the importance of the Tanke overhead bridge just because the previous governments also did post office overhead bridge and Gari-Alimi underpass. I think it will be good for him to also advise the government to stop building new hospitals just because Adamu Attah built hospitals in 1979.

Akogun also suggested that there’s no need to build an innovation centre because there existed in the state before the now skill acquisition centres. I may need to erase that erroneous perception in the mind of Akogun by saying the innovation centre is to polish and make whatever skills that have been acquired by anyone from any skill acquisition centre be in conformity with the relevance of the 21st century. The innovation centre is neither nor another IVTEC nor a technical college but an institution where those skills are made to be relevant adopted and adapted to solve problems of modern times. He also forgot to mention the governor is building the garment factory that will be operational this year, unlike the previous leadership who criminally sold all the legacies of the state.

If Akogun agreed that the governor had built some 300km of roads in just two years, basically this was done with only two years budget, this is unprecedented in the history of the state. It’s however sad to note that Akogun added both received and un-received allocation in trillions to say the governor has failed to meet up with the infrastructure development of the state. 

In his Local Government of Isin, the criminally erased Local Government in the past has been able to renovate two primary health centres and equipped all the twenty-one (21) health centres with six of them upgraded to handle emergencies, unlike the previous government. 

The entire council’s secretariat has received a facelift befitting the status of Akogun’s local government.

The Local Government has also rehabilitated Eighteen Boreholes across the Local Government with two in Isanlu-Isin and while also connecting all the villages with graded roads, the most important of this is the Oke-Onigbin-Isanlu Isin road, which was last graded around a decade ago. Akogun can walk into any local government in Kwara State today and see for himself the clear evidence of a shift from the old style of local government administration and today’s positive new order.

Although, in politics, we can only see what we want to see.

The last time any developmental projects came to Isin was the era of Mohammed Lawal until this administration was inaugurated. Isin was known to be the least in the geography of projects in Kwara State. However, under the leadership of AbdulRazak AbdulRahman, Isin has seen so many renovated and upgraded hospitals including the Primary Health Center in Isanlu Isin. Many schools and classrooms across the Local Government are also upgraded and renovated, especially in Edidi, Alla, Ijara-Isin, Odo-Ore and Oke-Onigbin on the pipeline. This is apart from the ongoing road construction being undertaken by the administration.

What is happening in Isin in terms of projects is also happening across the sixteen Local Governments and this time with a heavy presence in Kwara North, which is unprecedented.

Akogun long epistle to discredit this government will not work, because the masses can see very clearly, the improvement in governance, and can differentiate bitter politics, personal vendetta and positive governance. 

I will advise him as one of his sons to move closer to the governor and settle his personal issues and stop promoting himself as the mouthpiece of the masses. Propaganda won’t win against a productive and responsive government.