Governor Abdulrahaman Abdulrazak of Kwara appears to be fighting from all fronts, even with his family, just as he recently made it public that some politicians plan to unleash mayhem in the state with a view to blaming him as the course.
Yerimisa Youth from his Idi Igba home, Ilorin, recently wrote an open letter to the governor and his other siblings, outrightly calling them selfish and irresponsible.
But hardly had the storm died down when the governor cried out to a selected media men in Ilorin alleged plot to destabilize the state with violence.
On the latest alleged threat, the governor, through his chief press secretary, Rafiu Ajakaiye, Ajakaye said that those behind the plot cut across party lines, adding that the plot is part of a grand conspiracy to defame the Governor.
He said the plots also included sponsorship of spurious corruption allegations using sexed up official documents and innuendoes in the media to blackmail the Governor, urging members of the public and security agencies to be wary of the conspiracies.
“The objective of the plotters is to create a false image for the Governor as a promoter of violence, thereby heating up the polity in the name of politics and pitching him against the public. The desperadoes behind this plot do not care about the safety of the ordinary people and their properties,” Ajakaye said to the selected media men.
Abdulrazaks avoids open media parley but prefers media briefing through his CPS, mostly with selected media.
Explaining on behalf of his boss at the parley with selected media men, Ajakaiye said that the image they desperately seek to give the Governor is contrary to his sustained policy.
According to media aide, Abdulrazak does not patronise thugs or any violent elements.
“Rather than deploy the children of other people for political violence, the Governor desires to build a state that gives everyone, including those long condemned to thuggery and other antisocial behaviour, a fair chance to lead decent life. It is on record that even before becoming the Governor, he ran a campaign that was strictly issues-based without going around with thugs. He has a personal conviction that politics should be devoid of violence of any kind.
The media is also alleged to have been coopted into the scheme
“Another leg of the evil campaign is a planned and sustained media campaign of calumny woven around baseless allegations of corruption, contract inflation and the likes using doctored documents and wicked innuendoes. All of these are targeted at the Governor because he chooses to do things differently,” Ajakaiye said.
These latest development comes as the political feud continues within the state’s branch of the All Progressives Congress after it consumed a former chairman of the party and leading to outright isolation of bigwigs of the party in the state like Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information, Gbemisola Saraki also a minister in the federal cabinet, Ishaq Moddibbo, sacked and disgraced former DG, Nigerian Broadcasting Commission, NBC and many others.
While that is ongoing on the political front, members of his homestead in Ilorin say that Abdulrazaks may have had it coming.
According to Idi Igba youth, “it is saddening and disheartening that we the good people of Ile Yerimisa despite being blessed with the likes of Sen Khairat Abdulrazaq, Malam Isiaka Abdulrazaq, Dr Alimi Abdulrazaq and above all the executive Governor of Kwara state Malam Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq we are still living in barrenness.
“We have been protecting your intetest as family, shielding you from external and internal enemies, receiving banters and insults on your behalf, yet, you are still treating us with kick in the teeth.
“We the good people of Yerimisa Family are disappointed in you, we are not asking you to use the state money to attend to our needs but we are asking you to be responsive and responsible as members of our family.
“I wonder how the governor who is equally a member of our family will govern the state successful when he has not been responsive to the needs of his people not to talk of his community at large,” the youth lamented.”