As Lai Mohammed battles for political relevance in Kwara
For Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture, this is certainly not the best of time in his political career. He is presently waging a war that is critical to his survival as a politician to reckon with in his state, Kwara.
As a former chief of staff to a former Lagos State governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who has lived in Lagos for years, having largely plied his trade there as a lawyer and businessman, very few people know him as a Kwaran.
But in Oro in Irepodun Local Government Area of Kwara State, he is no doubt an illustrious son. His mansion sits distinctively in the heart of the community. He comes home every now and then to identify with his kinsmen.
Like many politicians of his ilk, Mohammed has reaped bountifully from the fertility of Lagos, the country’s commercial nerve centre. The state has been predominantly accommodating and still accommodates as many people as they troop in, in search of the greener pastures.
Asiwaju Tinubu, who ruled the state between 1999 and 2007, was able to assemble a star-studded team of appointees across the country. Among them was Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who has remained one of his loyalists till date.
From the days of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) to Action Congress (AC), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), he has remained committed to what their supporters call Tinubu’s progressive ideology, defending the politician and the party with candour and vigour.
With Tinubu playing the role of opposition at the national level, Mohammed has the Saraki’s dynasty to contend with in Kwara politics. This was the dynasty of the late Dr Abubakar Olusola Saraki, the second Republic Senate Leader who held sway in Kwara politics, under whose influence many governors emerged.
Several opposition politicians, including Lai Mohammed, were displeased with the system, but they were not strong and coherent enough to displace it.
In 2003, Mohammed contested the governorship election under the AD and was defeated by Dr Bukola Saraki, the immediate past Senate president and the scion of the Saraki dynasty, who was contesting for the first time as governor of the state.
In subsequent elections, Lai teamed up with other politicians to dislodge the Saraki dynasty, until 2015 when the formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC), to which the defunct newPeoples Democratic Party (nPDP) championed by Saraki himself was part of what brought together the two politicians, and for once, the minister was in the mainstream of the state’s politics. He instantly became a regular visitor to the Ahmadu Bello Way Government House and he could proudly say “This is our government.’’
But many were not surprised that the marriage was shortlived. Ab initio, it was a marriage of strange bedfellows. People with dissimilar ideological orientation, distinct idiosyncrasies all flocked together to dislodge the then president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan. The alliance of about five political parties which birthed the ruling APC then in 2014 was simply about hijacking power, and that objective was achieved, and as such, they all returned to the trenches.
It was not too long that the Saraki’s new-PDP bloc differed with the ACN’s, and Lai Mohammed, who had been the national publicity secretary of the party, particularly reverted to his old status, and within a twinkle of an eye, became an opposition figure once again as Saraki and the then Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed returned to the PDP.
The defection of Saraki and his people from the APC, where he was a founding member, paved the way for the likes of Alhaji Mohammed to return to his old struggle of hijacking the political machinery of the state from Saraki, which he failed to achieve in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015 under different circumstances and political parties.
Then the struggle took shape ahead of the 2019 elections. Many like-minded politicians joined the fray. It was going to be a fight to finish and the Otoge revolution did the unthinkable. Cashing in on the deep disenchantment with the Abdulfatah Ahmed-led administration, the Otoge mantra was what was needed to displace the Bukola Saraki-led PDP; a feat observers insist became easy without federal might.
But AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq became the star boy and the greatest beneficiary of the Otoge revolution, which sent Saraki and his candidates packing.
No sooner was the election concluded and AbdulRazaq emerged as governor than the next phase of the struggle commenced. Like a typical Nigerian politician, their interest is supreme. Where this was not met, it became an issue.
This is the genesis of the crisis that has rocked the APC in Kwara the moment the election was concluded. From the composition of the transition committee members to the formation of the cabinet, many chieftains and members of the party have felt “cheated, slighted and secluded’’ from the government they all toiled hard to form.
Undoubtedly, no one can dismiss the role played by Alhaji Mohammed in the victory of the APC in 2019. Rallying other opposition figures, majority those with “scores to settle’’ with Saraki, he became the symbol of the impending revolution. Through the Lagos APC, he even mobilised many Kwarans in the Centre of Excellence to return home and be part of history.
Incidentally, Senator Gbemi Saraki was also part of the struggle against her brother. What of Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo, the fiery and vocal voice on radio, criticising and shooting down every policy of the government ahead of the election. In the same struggle was Professor Shuaib Abdulraheem, a former chairman of the Federal Character Commission (FCC), and several others who feel they were not carried along in AbdulRazaq’s government.
The last straw was, however, the ‘sack’ of the party chairman,
Mr Bashir Omolaja Bolarinwa, popularly known as BOB, an Eruku man, who is also described as a ‘Lagosian’ like Lai Mohammed. BOB was a twoterm chairman of Lagos Mainland Local Government in Lagos and two-term member of the House of Representatives for Lagos Mainland federal constituency.
He became the party chairman immediately after the exit of Dr Bukola Saraki from the party in 2018. But he was ‘removed’ in what his backers call a ‘coup’ by the National Caretaker and Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee led by Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State, while his deputy, Alhaji Abdullahi Samari, who is loyal to the governor, was appointed.
All this while, Lai Mohammed has kept his cool, taking all the insults and what his supporters call insubordination, in order not to take the party to the cleaners, until the commencement of the APC membership registration and revalidation exercise, which has turned out to be as controversial as their primary elections.
The minister must have been pushed to the wall when he addressed the press conference where he called for the cancellation of the exercise, citing alleged disenfranchisement and deregistration of members.
He also said the Senator John Danboyi registration committee failed to meet with critical stakeholders as stipulated by the guidelines.
He said reports from the monitoring teams revealed that the exercise, which started on February 9, did not comply with stipulated guidelines.
The minister said, “The guidelines stipulate consultation with all the stakeholders by the registration officials from Abuja.
“After the botched attempt to have a meeting of stakeholders due to orchestrated violence, the registration officials failed to consult with all the stakeholders before the commencement of the membership registration exercise.
“They opted instead to work with only one of the four tendencies here in Kwara, the Fagbemi group, to which the governor belongs.
“They excluded the three other tendencies - the Akogun group, the Gbemi Saraki group and the Lai Mohammed group, without which the Otoge Movement would not have succeeded. Ironically, the Fagbemi group is the weakest of the four tendencies.
“Out of the 193 wards in the state, the group has only nine chairmen and does not have even one local government chairman,” he said.
But the governor’s loyalists have unleashed invectives on the minister for his outburst, saying they would resist any move to micromanage their boss.
But certainly, the minister is not alone in the struggle. Virtually all the governorship aspirants who contested with the governor have one grievance or another against him, yet instead of taking the path of reconciliation, the parties and their supporters have been making remarks that tend to exacerbate the cold war.
A chieftain of the party, Chief Rex Olawoye, blamed the APC crisis in the state on the lack of understanding between the governor and the executive of the party, which later culminated in what he called the illegal removal of the chairman.
He alleged that when the registration exercise commenced, the committee was cornered and materials hoarded.
“As I am talking to you, I have not registered because there is no paper in my own polling unit. Again, all of us registered before and we have our membership cards. They said they were doing revalidation; for what? Now, those who have registered are not up to one-third of our members,’’ he said.
He said while nobody was contesting the leadership of the party with the governor, he had all the power to unite every chieftain and member of the party.
He said it was unfortunate that even the lawmakers who only rode on the Otoge struggle to get elected are supporting the sack of the executive.
Olawoye, who was a frontline opposition figure and one of the Otoge champions, said though the governor remained his friend, he needed to work with all the stakeholders of the party who contributed to his emergence.
Will Alhaji Lai Mohammed be successful in his fight to remain relevant in the politics of Kwara State? Only time will tell.
By Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, who was in Magami
In the middle of the day on Saturday, February 13, Mallam Ummaru and some of his friends and neighbours were approached by a girl running fast from the edge of the village. Like other residents of Magamin Diddi in Maradun Local Government of Zamfara State, Mallam Umaru spend most of the day these days perching from one shed to another, rummaging over the fate that has befallen their village lately. Incursion of armed bandits has confined residents to their homes, with the detachment of soldiers, deployed to the village after a devastating attack in December, serving as the only shield for the village against lurking bandits.
Tragedy
The little girl, Hasiya had come to tell the older men that “something had stricken the legs of some of her peers and they fell down, unable to move,” Umaru recalled in an interview with Daily Trust on Sunday at the village. He and others who were under the neem tree dashed along with Hasiya to see for themselves what the issue was. On arriving, the elders met four bodies of the community’s young ones on the ground, five of them, were lifeless, five were struggling in different degrees of pains and injuries. The spot was just some 300 metres away from the edge of the village on the eastern side.
“The soldiers ran down to the scene after us. They were distraught as they caught sight of the damage. Their commander was in tears,” said Mallam Ummaru.
What happened that afternoon, Daily Trust on Sunday gathered, was an explosion from a device planted by the soldiers, which was targeted at Fulani bandits terrorising residents of Magami. A mass attack on the village in December brought to fore the dangers the villagers were in and the Zamfara State Government responded to the attack by mobilising for a deployment of soldiers to the village. Despite the presence of the soldiers, the adamant attackers were not yet giving up and routinely attacked villagers.
First respondents, assisted by the Army personnel, immediately arranged to rush down the wounded to the hospital in Mafara.
“When they reached Mafara, two more of the kids were pronounced dead,” a local vigilante in the village said. That increased the figure of those killed by the explosion to seven.
Residents told our reporter that the 10 children affected by the explosion were in the outskirts to collect stalks for use as firewood. At the last count, seven of them were killed while two were still on admission at the General Hospital, Gusau. One other who sustained mild injury was back home.
Four of the deceased were females, while three others were males.
The oldest was Madina, whose age was put at 10, followed by Yar Idi, 9; Salisu, 8; Naja, 7; Bilya, 6, with Uban Diya and Dije as the youngest at 5 years each.
When Daily Trust on Sunday visited the spot where the explosive went off, blood stains still dotted the dried sandy field. Abandoned shoes, some of them dented with blood, were scattered around, reminiscent of how the device threw off the victims within the circumference of the incident. A few stalks were there as well, and a little rope, obviously meant for tying up whatever stalks they were able to gather from the dry fields.
More devastating is that all the seven kids who lost their lives were from the same family. Four of them were of the same parents while three others were their cousins.
Mallam Ummaru, the leader of the extended family said, “There is nothing to say but to submit to the will of Allah. This was fated to happen, but it is traumatising and difficult, especially for their mothers.” He said two other siblings of the deceased were still in the hospital, along with one child from another household.
Another affected parent, Alhaji Sadau Magami, said the incident was a test from God, explaining that residents were warned against going into the bush. “But as it was destined, our children went there,” he said.
Alhaji Sadau also appealed to the delegation and other authorities to keep an eye on the town. “They should please look after Magami, the bandits are around us; we see them always. If the soldiers are removed from Magami today, this town will be overrun,” he said.
Although the platoon commander would not talk on the circumstances that led to the explosion, Mallam Ummaru told our reporter that the device was planted by the soldiers when they were alerted that bandits were approaching the village from that axis.
“The soldiers tried for us. For two days they combed the area in search of the device, but they could not locate it,” Ummaru recalled.
He said the commander was so disturbed that he cried openly. “We had to console and remind him that it was an act of God. God who created us had destined that they would lose their lives that way,’’ he said.
He said they reminded the commander that as parents, they knew the target was not their children and soldiers had made announcements that children should not go far from their homes and should not pick any unknown object. He said it was unfortunate that children from that part of the village were not aware of the warning.
SSG, others visit scene
They should please look after Magami, the bandits are around us; we see them always. If the soldiers are removed from Magami today, this town will be overrun
On Wednesday, a delegation of the Zamfara State Government, led by the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Alhaji Bala Bello Maru, visited Magami, where they condoled the affected residents on behalf of Governor Bello Matawalle and extended cash donations to the grieving parents.
The delegation addressed residents of the village at the residence of the district head, Alhaji Abubakar Abbas, who appreciated the support and concern shown by the state government, while also highlighting that the village still survives under threat.
Speaking during the visit, the commissioner for security and home affairs in the state, Alhaji Abubakar Dauran, said it was not the intention of the state government to always send delegation on such missions, noting, however, that it was a mark of improvement on security situation in the state that such visits could be made.
“You all know that in the past, when an attack occurred, no one would dare travel for condolence, yet this is not our wish. Our wish and that of the governor is for a lasting peace all over the state. We want everywhere to be peaceful and for people to be able to go to their farms and live their lives normally,” he said.
Dauran said the state government was hastening its peace deals with bandits to bring an end to the hostilities, saying, however, that whoever did not accept peace among the attackers, government would find a way of dealing with them.
When the delegation visited the palace of the Emir of Maradun, Alhaji Garba Mohammed Tambari, the SSG assured of government’s commitment to end the spate of insecurity in the area and the state in general. He announced a N3million donation to parents of the 10 identified victims of the explosion.