No other freedom fighter deserves more ovation than (prophet) Bob Marley who had long foreseen the current situation in which Kwara State is engulfed before chanting his evergreen redemption song-listen to him:
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Wo! Have no fear for atomic energy
‘Cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say it’s just a part of it
We’ve got to fulfill the book
Won’t you have to sing
These songs of freedom?
‘Cause all I ever had
Redemption songs
All I ever had
Redemption songs
These songs of freedom
Songs of freedom
It gladdens my heart to the seventh heaven during my last visit to Ilorin to see that Kwarans (especially Ilorites) are increasingly shedding off their archaic and crude political adhesion and extremism to align with the current socio-political realities obtainable in other states. The teeming population of kwaran youths are already chanting Bob Marley’s freedom and redemption lyrics to grab the state from the sharp claws of age-long political marauders. Alas! It is a show of contrition in the middle of which some folks still wallow. It is high time we purged ourselves of political myopia and mental ignorance that has eaten deep into our skin marrow.
Kwara has been a playhouse for their series of shenanigans and foolery one of which was staged against former governor Muhammad Lawal before his painful exit. Plethora of propagandas were deployed against the late admiral at every nook and cranny of the state just to score some political points-even the third term propounder (when he was president) played the devil’s advocate to enthrone his political trainee-both state and federal might was used to pull Lawal down. The atmosphere was tense ! Sheer fears and excruciating angst rented an apartment in our minds as they fed us with campaigns of hate and calumny that Mallam Lawal was hell bent on denigrating the Alimi’s stool by coercively stripping the fulah-born emir of Ilorin off his ancestral turban who (the hell) will hear his death sentence and still go to market square to dance? It is only a foolish chick that dines and wines with hawk on the same table.
The people of Ilorin fell for this expensive delusion and gimmick against Muhammed Lawal, and it was against this backdrop he lost his goodwill before the people of Ilorin as he was retaliatorily sent packing from office. What a regrettable act!
Just a few days back while surfing through my “WhatsApp” I stumbled upon a piece authored by one Baraka Abdulrauph painting Alhaji Lai Mohammed in luciferous manner (in a bid to garner public sympathy and clemency for the angelic Senate President) as being the veiled actor behind Saraki’s Code of Conduct Tribunal travails. I smiled. Like 2Face baba said: “Jungle don mature, no time for caricature.” We have gone past the era of trading in cheap lies and propagandas to gullible Kwarans-people now know their right from left. Youuat agree with me that there has never been a time like this in the history of Kwara politics when the Saraki dynasty was faced with such strict political asphyxiation and belligerence, so unprecedented! Protests here and there are a glaring pointer that the agelong dynasty’s stopwatch has ticked to the second.
Advisably, now that we are embarking on a SAFE OUR SOUL mission in our beloved Kwara State against the agelong institutionalised neo-servility, we must operate with strict resolute and not give in to any divisive or diversionary ploy from any quarters. The choice of credible and heavyweight candidates (for different offices) is more of a necessity if we must avoid what happened to the PDP in 2015 when they field a featherweight gubernatorial candidate-the man could not even pull his own family, let alone kwaran electorate. We need to remain a united front as an African proverb goes: “if thousands of cobwebs unite they can tie up a lion.”
As we embark on our freedom and redemption odyssey, I will advise us with word of Fredrick Douglas:
“Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!”
Ibrahim Mo Gambari
Lagos.
mdfunsho@gmail.com