By Ndanusa Zakariyah
It is believed that the reason why many of the governors in the 36 states in our country underperform or fail to live up to peopleโs expectations is because they have succeeded in emasculating the opposition in their respective states. Through several strategies of sabotage, the governors usually cripple the opposition and make its key members defect to the ruling party or become beneficiaries of largesse from the state governments.
In some cases, the lack of bite from the opposition is not the result of any design from the ruling party. It is the outcome of the fickle-mindedness of the leaders of the opposition or the lack of focus, ingenuity, and sound ideas on the part of the opposition leaders.
In Kwara State, the PDP which after being in power for 16 years lost in the 2019 elections had also suffered this inertia for some time within the last four years. However, the energy, focus, virility, ingenuity, efficacy, sharpness, courage, and determination recently being demonstrated by the Kwara PDP have been unprecedented. The party after losing the last general election to a ruling party whose government lacks any good record of performance and which spent so much money to cajole voters into re-electing its candidates, the PDP seems to have woken from its slumber.
The party is acting true to type as an opposition party set to put the government on its toes. It is the platform that has continuously informed the people about the inadequacies of the government. The Kwara PDP has been shaking the APC government out of its lethargy in which for the first four years of the Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq administration no major infrastructural project was inaugurated, no beneficial Programme was unfolded and no important policy was put in place to better the lives of the people.
The Kwara State government is seriously now being held to account. It now has something to think of when taking action and has been forced to make many explanations for its activities. Thanks to the PDP in the state and some Civil Society Organisations, the Abdulrazaq administration now watches its back on the allocation and deployment of state resources. It is a resurgence, rebirth, and renewal of the PDP in the State of Harmony.
However, one wonders what has changed in the PDP. Where is the new energy coming from and what is responsible for the sudden re-invigoration of the Umbrella party in the State of Harmony? What one can remember is that the leadership of the party did a rejig in the state executive committee after the last general elections. The leadership decided to energise the partyโs working committee by bringing in three youths to hold key posts. These include the posts of State secretary, publicity secretary, and acting youth leader.
Thus, Messrs Kayode Abdulrahman, Olusola Olusegun Adewara, and Mohammed Abdulmumini, who occupy the respective aforementioned positions are young men. Their emergence symbolised the decision of the party leadership to reinvigorate the partyโs operation with youthful energy, technology, and fresh ideas.
This decision seems to be working well for the opposition in Kwara State. Daily, the party is shaping public opinion. The PDP in Kwara State is giving the people up-to-date information about the governmentโs activities and what it is doing that it would not want the people to know about.
The youths in PDP are putting their party in the news every day holding the government accountable and showing how the people have made a mistake electing a party that promised them nothing and is also not delivering nothing to them.
The new group in the PDP executive is giving hope to their fellow party members. They are giving meaning to what a real opposition party represents. They are giving representation to the other voice and giving a viable platform to the silent majority to speak out. With their constant watch on the government, the media is being fed with facts, figures, and content to play their watchdog role.
All these are happening because of the injection of some young, new, determined, devoted, dedicated, and focused young men who believe their people are not getting what they deserve from a government that is behaving as if it owes nobody anything.
One now wonders why it took the PDP leadership under former Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki this long after it lost power in 2019 to realise the fact that it needs a change of hands and style. The trio making the difference has always been in the party. The decision to mix the old hands with the young people is the magic behind the PDP renewal and its sharpness in taking on the government of the day.
The present state of the party should be a clear indication to Saraki and others that the gamble to entrust the party in the hands of the youths is paying off. Young people are making things happen across the world and the Kwara PDP should start seeing the merits of its new decision.
Saraki and the rest of the PDP leadership should consider giving more leadership roles to the youths within the party at all levels. The PDP in Kwara should consider changing the entire leadership and giving total control of the party to the youths.
Also, the elders in the partyโs SWC and SEC should know that the young men have given a good bite to the PDP and won it more respect. They have made the Kwara PDP an institution that the government in the state dreads. The PDP in Kwara State now speaks for the people. It now fights for the people and this is because the people can trust it.
Kwara PDP is where the youthโs magic is working. It is where the youths have proved that they deserve to be given a chance. People like Saraki and Co should take a good lesson from this. They should give better consideration to the youth. On the one they have done already, they got it right.
Zakariyah writes from Baruten, kwara state.ย
