Kwara: A sad ending for false propaganda

By: Seun Emmanuel

IT can be no surprise that the families of the victims of the April 5, 2018 robbery in Offa, Kwara State, have been asking the Kwara State Governor, Mr Abdulrahman  Abdulrazaq, to stop chasing shadows. Speaking at a news c onference in Offa last Monday, the spokesperson of the families, Mr. Abdulraheem Babatunde, said in palpable pain: “Many of the victims and their families—some of whom are here with us today—have received little or no meaningful support. No adequate financial assistance. No sustained emotional care. No visible commitment to their recovery. These are people still living with trauma, still rebuilding their lives, largely on their own.The pain of Offa is not a campaign strategy. It is not propaganda material. It must never be used as a weapon for political gain.”

If this declaration shows anything, it is the fact that the people have seen through the shenanigans of Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, who in a fit of rage and political vendetta filed a 20-count charge before the Kwara State High Court in Ilorin, accusing his predecessors in office, Dr Bukola Saraki and Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, Saraki, and two others of criminal conspiracy and culpable homicide in connection with the Offa incident. In clear terms, the people told the governor and his co-travellers to perish any thought of recreating the political charade of 2019 when the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) politicized their pain and hurled scurrilous accusations at the Saraki and Ahmed riding on the machinations of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency.

In large part because of arrogance and a ridiculous assumption that the people have fickle reasoning capacity, the Kwara governor had apparently hoped to harvest yet another political capital by pinning the dastardly incident on Saraki and Ahmed. But the reaction of the people, whose pain was exploited by ruthless and desperate power seekers in 2019, has made one thing clear: when people think of Abdulrazaq in future, all they will remember is his politicization of the Offa tragedy. Already on his way out of power after eight inglorious years in which he plunged the state into misery and despair, Abdulrazaq is stoking a case that will probably linger for years and end up being the major legacy for which he will be remembered. Sad as that is, it would be a fitting denouement to a government of deception and subterfuge.

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As a leader, the Kwara governor cuts the picture of an individual who prioritizes control over truth, using fear and smear tactics. Yet, even Machiavelli, the theorist whose teaching he appears to follow, warns that a ruler who loses public trust risks instability. If you are familiar with the Big Lie concept in political propaganda theory, you cannot fail to see that Kwara APC and their goons are banking on repeating the Offa lie loudly and  consistently in the hope that it will make people believe it. But it is blowing up in their face because the good people of Kwara State have penetrated their partisan plot. Manipulation, once exposed, severely damages credibility. As the Yoruba say: if a lie travels for 20 years, the truth will catch up with it one day.

In his seven years has governor, Abdulrazaq has hardly ever featured on the front page of any national newspaper. Now,he is expending state funds on purchasing space on the front pages at costs that can conveniently deliver democratic dividends in education and healthcare delivery. The conclusion is inescapable: his abiding concern is political survival, not the needs of Kwara people. But the miscalculation, driven in part by defective education and advice, couldn’t have been starker: his fabrication is coming at a time when vast swathes of Kwara State’s territory are under the control of terrorists. By featuring on the front pages for two sinister reasons—his wonky defence of his politically motivated charge and the orgy of killings to which Kwara people are being subjected— Abdulrazaq is actively constructing the image of an incompetent, directionless and vainglorious shadow chaser.

The auguries are indeed portentous: over 400 people were murdered in Kwara State between January 2025 and March 2026. In the Woro community of Kaiama Local Government Area alone, 176 people were murdered in one fell swoop. Many are still in the kidnappers’ den till now. And the brutal onslaught on Saraki, a two-term governor of the state and a former Senate Presidency whose innocence two reports by the Department of Public Prosecution (DPP) affirmed twice even in the face of the alleged desperation of the Buhari presidency to nail him, is throwing up the gory details of the killings and kidnappings in which the state has become enveloped under Abdulrazaq’s lackluster leadership. As analysts have noted, while Abdulrazaq and his administration have fumbled and wobbled trying to defend their utter lack of capacity as casualties of terror mount across the state, Saraki, without any elective office in view, has ample time and resources to neutralize the noisome pestilence from Ahmadu Bello House. This is quite apart from the terrible optics of a governor resurrecting a robbery case for which suspects have been convicted eight years later, and in an election season, brimming with what the Chinese call “the will to convict” while lacking a shred of evidence. This exposes the fundamental ignorance that undergirds his administration.

In an election year in which voters look for a record of solid achievements, the Kwara governor is burdened with the self-imposed duty of proving that an incumbent Senate President, as Saraki then was, and the Governor of Kwara State, as Abdulfatah was, sponsored an armed robbery attack in their state. And this is in the context of revelations, duly authenticated in the court of law, that the suspects were both tortured and promised mouth-watering incentives if only they would nail Saraki. And, worst still for the politically drowning, misgoverned governor, there is no possible motive for the alleged crime. What would a Senate President and State Governor be looking for in the vaults of a bank that would justify involvement in a bank robbery? And as he is seeking to answer the impossible question, he is confronted with the ugly spectre of ongoing killings in the Kwara North and South districts, and the agonies of a distraught populace. And when Nigerians remember that no major project has been commissioned in Abdulrazaq’s Kwara in the last seven years, and no presidential visit has been warranted simply because there are no projects worthy of such visits, the picture that emerges is that of a complete failure.

Bad leaders deflect attention from their wrongdoing by blaming others. By hurling baseless accusations at his predecessors, the Kwara governor is trying to shift scrutiny away from his own misconduct. But weaponizing false accusations while engaging in blackmail represents a failure of character. A governor that embodies Machiavellian manipulation without prudence, Orwellian distortion of truth, and scapegoat politics can only dig his own downfall in the present circumstances. It is clear that Abdulrazaq’s advisers are intent on dragging him into political oblivion. Deception can win power temporarily. What it cannot do is sustain legitimacy.

•Emmanuel writes in from Abuja