Politics

Cabinet: Disquiet in Kwara APC over first batch of commissioner-nominees

After several months of procrastination, Governor Abdulrahman
Abdulrazaq on Tuesday last week finally released the names of the
first batch nominees to be appointed as commissioners in the state
pending their screening by the Kwara State House of Assembly. HEAD
POLITICS, MUMINI ABDULKAREEM writes on the issue.

Following months of delay since the inauguration of Abdulrahman
Abdulrazaq as Governor of Kwara State, the list of the first batch of
commissioner nominees was finally forwarded to the Kwara State House
of Assembly penultimate week ending.
The period between then was characterised by agitation and horse trading.
However, the list of four female nominees which cut across only two
out of the three senatorial districts in the state rather than douse
the tension and agitation the nomination had generated among the
stakeholders of the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress
(APC), it had further exacerbated the issue.
Political pundits are of the belief that the situation has the
potential to further stretch the fragile line of unity between top
party chieftains and the Governor to its elastic limit it is not well
managed.
While announcing the names of the four female nominees forwarded to
the House of Assembly, the Governor through a statement from his Chief
Press Secretary (CPS), Rafiu Ajakaye listed a 26-year-old Joana Nnazua
Kolo from Edu Local Government Area regarded as the youngest
commissioner-nominee in the state’s history and a 2018 graduate of
Library Science from the Kwara State University (KWASU) who is still
having her National Youths Service Corps programme in Jigawa, where
she is teaching at Model Boarding Junior Secondary School Guri.
According to the CPS, if confirmed, Kolo would be Nigeria’s youngest
commissioner, overtaking Oyo State’s 27-year-old Oluwaseun Fakorede,
adding that her screening for the cabinet seat would hold after she
rounds off her NYSC service in two weeks time.
The three other nominees include the wife of DG of the National
Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Mrs Sa’adatu Modibbo-Kawu, to represent
Ilorin South; a daughter of former Kwara State Governor, Hajia Arinola
Fatimoh Lawal representing Ilorin East Local Government and a sibling
of the immediate past member of the House of Representatives for
Edu/Moro/Patigi federal constituency of Kwara state, Hajia
Ahman-Pategi. She is a former Senior Special Assistant to the Speaker
of the House of Representatives on Strategy and Communication.
But shortly after the list was made public, the hope of it dousing
tension in the party seemingly evaporated as stakeholders groaned and
grumbled over the composition with some of them practically rejecting
it.
Sign that all was not well despite the cosmetic eulogies from some
quarters over the issue surfaced shortly after the list was announced
when the Tsaragi chapter of the APC praised the Governor for
appointing Mrs Kolo, (rave of the moment).
According to the group following a thank you visit to the Governor
over the issue which spoke through Paul Solomon Jiya, chairman of the
APC Zoning Committee in Tsaragi, “We are grateful for… approving our
nomination from Tsaragi emirate and we assure you of our continued
support. Kolo’s Tsaragi Ward I in Edu Local Government was where the
office of commissioner has been zoned to in accordance with the local
political arrangement”.
Just like the saying that there is no smoke without fire, a top party
chieftain of the APC in Kwara North had confided in Pilot Politics
over the issue that the Governor might be doing himself more harm than
good if it did not accommodate the list that would seem to reflect the
agitations and expectations of the stakeholders. With the list so far
released. Such fears might not be far from reality.
Many other top party chieftains that spoke on the issue, it seems,
have only decided to tarry for a while pending the release of
additional names to know whether to rock the boat of not.
Speaking on the development, Prof AbdulRaheem Shuaib Oba, former
aggrieved gubernatorial aspirants of the party, he told this medium
that “It was the prerogative of the Governor to do what he did (by
releasing only four female names)”, a statement that many believed was
escapist in the face of the gulf that allegedly existed among party
stakeholders and the Governor over the list of nominees.
In the same vein, former chairman of the PDP and now a strong
chieftain of the APC, Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo also told this medium that
“releasing the list in piecemeal is the decision of the Governor”
adding that “leave him now, shebi, he will release the rest later.
Oyedepo said as for the inclusion of Kolo, “He (Governor Abdulrazaq)
wants to bring up the young ones”.
But Prince Sunday Fagbemi believes the development was a fulfillment
of the electoral promises to fill the inadequacies of the one hundred
male dominated elective positions (legislators) to pacify the women
folks in his appointments which cut across the age strata’. On the
gradual release of the list, Fagbemi noted that there is no law that
compels the Governor to release the full list all at once, adding that
there is nothing any human being will do that will be perfect to those
that don’t love him. “If you pressurize some and he refused to be
pressed, what do you do?”, he queries.
In the words of Moshood Mustapha, another former gubernatorial
aspirants of the APC while reacting to the issue, “We are eagerly
waiting for the list just like Kwarans and see whether it’s something
that is in line with the position of the stakeholder of the party. We
want to wait for the full list of the people that will drive the
affairs of the state on behalf of the people of the state.
“My appeal over this is that the Governor is just letting the cat out
of the bag. We should wait for the entire cat to come to see whether
it’s a cat with four or six legs and one eye or two eyes… If for
whatever reason we feel very uncomfortable with some of the names, we
have our own channels of talking to the Governor and if we need to
talk to the people to express our appreciation or disappointed to the
Governor, we will not fail to do that. I agree that the list is
supposed to come  out at once because of the high expectation of the
people. It’s unfortunate that the Governor has released the list in
piecemeal instead of all at once. We have been very patient since the
Governor was inaugurated in May, so we should just wait for about a
week or some from now for the list and we take it up from there”, he
added
Meanwhile, a member of the party’s youth wing, Ibrahim Yakub while
commenting on the issue in a piece titled the ‘The Game of Throne in
(appointment of) Kwara Commissioner Nominees’ held that ‘With the
list, it is glaring that the governor wants to be a loner and has
abandoned the finger that fed him. It’s obvious that he had abandoned
the party and all party men who worked with him for his emergence.

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