Kwara Takes New Identity Under Governor AbdulRazaq

History is not always written by the victors. Historical narratives are sometimes dominated by the villains who make the loudest noise and have the platforms. Empress Wu expanded the Tang dynasty, reopened China’s Silk Road, and funnelled government’s funding into social services for the poor and the vulnerable. But she made the mistake of letting others tell her story when she left her epitaph blank. In place of her great legacies, those who found her rule unbefitting and at odds with their narrative gave her a new identity: ‘she killed her sister, slaughtered her brothers, murdered her emperor, and poisoned her mother. Both gods and humans hate her’.

Even as Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq’s administration expended more than N15bn to clear many years of salary, promotion arrears and gratuities, and faces up the daunting task of bridging the infrastructure gaps in basic schools such as fixing classrooms in more than 605 locations, it is commonplace to hear apologists of the past regimes saying nothing good has happened in the last five years. The idea is to talk down the gains of the past five years in the hope that history may forget or disregard how far Kwara has come since the old order was ousted. It is truthiness. Shouldn’t people of good conscience then take the ‘good trouble’ of preserving history?

Kwara has turned the corners for positive reasons, while pending deficits progressively get good attention on a sustainable basis. The administration is five years old today, with Governor Abdulrazaq overwhelmingly winning re-election last year.

The state is emerging from a backwater civil service state to a go-to place for tech-enabled basic education, conferencing, tourism, and entertainment hub and north central economic powerhouse as the Governor ramps up work on the country’s largest garment factory, sugar factory film studio, innovation hub, visual arts centre, international conference centre, revenue house, the industrial park at Eiyenkorin and agroprocessing zone, and the legacy Kwara Hotel. He has built new dental and eye care centres, modern intensive care units, and newly-equipped hospital wards. And he maintains the bits he inherited. Numerous agric programmes are ongoing to support farmers and boost food security.

– Rafiu Ajakaye is Chief Press Secretary to the Governor