2023: Kwara North elders to hold summit on choice of district’s candidate, next month

By Mumini Abdulkareem
Elders, political players and top stakeholders from Kwara North have scheduled a summit for next month to deliberate on the process and modalities of selecting the regions candidate for 2023.
The summit, which venue was yet to be fixed is coming on top of the strong agitation from indigenes of the district that their time due to rule the state again in the spirit of fairness and equity.
The position of the Kwara North stakeholders on 2023, it was gathered last night, cut across political parties and is blind to whether Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq will seek a second term ticket or not.
Although the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the last gubernatorial election in 2015 signed a pack for Razak Atunwa, its governorship candidate to serve one term and return power to Kwara North, the district voted the All Progressives Congress (APC).
It was further gathered that the stakeholders have already started reaching out to political players and their counterparts in Kwara Central and south respectively to support their aspiration.
Confirming the incident, a former Kwara State Head of Service (HoS), Alhaji Mohammed Dabarako who is also part of the conveners of the summit confirmed the development during a chat with National Pilot in Ilorin.
He said the meetings will be used to decide on several steps to be taken towards the actualisation of project.
Hear him:
“We from Kwara north are seriously concern about producing the next governor in the state by 2023. Some of us have met and we have discussed but we are going in for a larger meeting that will decide so many things for us. Past political activities in the state have rather heightened our demand for the seat. We are looking at the end of September October 2020 but the elders will meet on it and they will decide the way forward. There are so many things to be decided but we are looking for governorship. The meeting will cut across party affiliations. All we are concerned about is that the person should be from Kwara North and must have seen the past. This is our guiding principles
“Our collective agitation is Kwara North 2023 (insha Allah). There is no diverse ambition. The diversity will come in when we have to determine who goes for what which will also be determined by other committees. Such committee will be left to decide whether the district will rule for four or eight years in connection with discussion we will have with other regions so as not to go into conflict with each other and zoning will certainly be among what we are going to discuss. If we have zoning, we have rotation so that every part of the state will be happy.
“The meeting will also address the local government that should produce the governor and those interested there. The core north will be further divided into two or three in this regards. I except Moro to be able to state their position clearly during the meeting and how they want to be part of it. We need to be careful and rally everybody on a common cause. Since 1999, we have not had the governorship and by 2023, we will be talking about 20 years down the line. So it is even our right to pick, not a privilege and nobody is doing us any favour. In fact, anybody that wants to take it from us is trying to rob us of the governorship. We are already talking to other districts for support and they are ready to support us. It is not only Kwara North that is angry with the situation, there is agitation in Ilorin East, South and other areas.
“Anybody that has been elected before may face more problem than other that are just coming for the contest. And for the new comers, we will look at how that have impacted their community” he noted.