By Owodunni Rasheed Adekunle
One of the several failures of Mr Bukola Saraki as governor of Kwara State was not seeing governance as a continuum. Rather than complete the numerous uncompleted developmental projects bequeathed on him by the late ex-Governor Mohammed Lawal of the blessed memory, he allowed them to rot away.
Before Mr Saraki completed his two terms of eight years as governor and another eight years as a de facto governor, the late former Governor’s uncompleted developmental projects such as the high-volume overhead (concrete) water reservoirs and hostels in Kwara State Polytechnic that once promised Kwarans comfort, had become threats due to abandonment.
However, Saraki’s reasons for not seeing governance as a continuum were not farfetched. It was to discredit the late ex-governor’s efforts and steal from the state’s coffer all in the name of starting similar projects. For instance, after abandoning the concrete water reservoir project, he took N2.3 billion from the state’s treasury with the promise to provide water for suffering Kwarans, only for our people to continue queueing for water years later.
Thanks to Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq for his compassionate and developmental leadership. He hasn’t only completed most of the late former military governor’s uncompleted projects abandoned by Saraki but has also named some of them after him. The last time I visited Kwara State Polytechnic, my jaw dropped seeing the transformation in the hostels and hall started in the late former governor Lawal’s administration.
Few days ago, while I was surfing the internet, I came across some Kwara People’s Democratic Party (PDP) members’ posts where they heaped praises on Saraki over the KWASU Osi & Ilesha Campuses newly completed by the Governor Abdulrazaq-led administration. In their mischievous thinking, he deserved commendations more than the governor who completed it. While I have no issue with their decision to shower their leader with praises for starting the project he couldn’t complete because of his own greed, I think taking Governor Abdulrazaq, who delivered it, out of the picture, all in the name of politics, makes no sense.
What these elements in Kwara PDP fail to understand is that if Governor Abdulrazaq had discontinued the KWASU Osi & Ilesha Baruba Campuses project the way their leader neglected the uncompleted developmental projects bequeathed on him by his predecessor, they would have nothing to celebrate today. Perhaps the campus would have been rotting away the way he made late Lawal’s high-volume overhead (concrete) water reservoirs, which could have solved the problem of water scarcity in the state rotted away.
As I pointed out in one of my articles earlier this year, Saraki’s followers are his problem. They don’t know when to praise him and when to stop. When they are supposed to shut their mouth and do not; they end up setting him up against the media. Aside from the backlash that has followed the undue praises his followers showered on him over the newly completed KWASU campuses, Saraki wouldn’t be proud of his attitude towards the uncompleted projects bequeathed on him by the late ex-Governor Lawal, seeing the fantastic job done by Governor Abdulrazaq-led administration on the campuses and the genuine praises Kwarans have been showering on him.
Owodunni is a social commentator and writes from Oyun Local Government Area.
