AbdulRazaq Does Not Make Noise, He Acts

AbdulRazaq Does Not Make Noise, He Acts By Tajudeen Habeeb History proves again and again that deep thinkers, strategists, and battle-tested generals are hardly found chirping like birds. On the other hand, the shallowest people in the room are often the loudest. This appears to be the case with those who mistake noise making or attention grabbing for political strategy, especially in the politics of Kwara State. If you followed the noise leading to the primaries in May, you would be forgiven to think that the soft-spoken Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq was not in charge of anything in Kwara and that the loudest voices in the media already had the party primaries locked down. Alas! The primaries came and they all lost out embarrassingly. It turned out that the loudest voices only had the social media as their territory, while the Governor maintained a quiet and strategic control of the party structure amid impressive connection with the ordinary folks on the streets. All hell was again let loose after the primaries. Those who lost out insisted they were the best thing after rice and beans. We almost fell for this until ‘the most popular’ of them jumped ship to take a senatorial ticket in Saraki’s faction of the PDP. We thought this was going to lead to unprecedented mass exodus of party structures across not just the central senatorial district but also across the state in solidarity with the “most popular politician in Kwara”. But what we have seen has given the right perspective: the serving senator has only managed to move with one ward executive out of 52 in the district and 193 in the whole state. In other words, 192 of 193 wards are standing heavily behind the Governor. That is a rarity in a season of political horse trading like this. The point here is that the Governor appears to be a rare General who finishes off his lousy detractors with the irrepressible power of calmness. That development tells us exactly why President Bola Tinubu, one of the most suave Nigerian political generals of all time, firmly keeps this quiet governor in his corner. And there are many reasons for that: he doesnt waste bullets on needless wars, and reports after reports have shown that he is a performer under whom Kwara has attained many heights in infrastructure, human capital development, and support for the poor. Whoever has studied Governor AbdulRazaq will know how so much in love he is with being quiet. He cherishes humility. For instance, people who knew Kwara before he came on board in 2019 and have visited the state a few years later have wondered why he has not locked down the entire media space to propagate his great work. To be certain, no Governor since 1967 (perhaps sans military administrator George Agbazika Innih and its foundational leader David Bamigboye) has developed the capital city and the entire state as much as AbdulRazaq within a space of seven years. It is the same in basic education, revenue generation, economic expansion, basic healthcare, workers’ welfare, and digital land administration. The saying that “empty barrels roll easily” is very apt in the case of AbdulRazaq. He doesn’t seek limelight for the sake of it. Yet, within a space of three years after winning second term, he has quietly converted four in five political greats from the old Saraki dynasty. Measured by governance deliverables and the size of vibrant and energetic political foot soldiers across the state, the Governor is stronger today than he was in 2023 when he won his second term despite a wave of defections in 2022. Most of the people who left in 2022 are now back in his corner. This is apart from many erstwhile Saraki generals who have now pitched their tents with him. Just last weekend, the scion of the late Governor Mohammed Alabi Lawal, Hakeem Lawal, held a huge rally in Ilorin to declare full support for the Governor and his team. Armed with the right intelligence reports from every part of the country, the President fullyunderstands these dynamics even as he (Mr President) bravely manages the complexities of power politics and governance at the centre. Nothing shows this better than how the President rightly sided with the Governor in the primaries and its aftermath. While not lousy when others had portrayed themselves as the mightiest power brokers that ever lived, the Governor ensured that the party produced tickets that are not just mostly fair, equitable, morally acceptable and sellable to the largest segments of the state, but are equally historic for Kwara and its people in this Republic. It is for nothing that the President did not fall for the media propaganda beneath which are boastful individuals and political betrayals like Senator Saraki who now seek entry to power through the backdoor — in spite of his haughty ways, his spiteful behaviours towards the President in the past, and his penchant to always pursue personal ambition to any ridiculous length at the expense of party interest or political decency. Who chooses an arrogant godfather living on past glories over a humble Governor who has delivered significantly across the state to the point that the number of roads he has done far exceeds what his two predecessors did combined? As events have shown thus far, it is clear that the President has a side in Kwara and his trusted lieutenant is Governor AbduRazaq who has shown capacity, loyalty, and commitment to the President’s Renewed Hope Agenda at every turn. Those who measure political relevance merely by who is on a campaign list now being reviewed are shallow propagandists whose past efforts had ended in lost primaries. Another defeat awaits them next year, as the Governor again delivers Kwara to President Tinubu as he did in 2023 when Saraki was working hard against the President’s victory. *Comrade Tajudeen Habeeb writes from Idigba, Ilorin, Kwara State.