Date: 2014-05-11

I have lately been thinking about this young chap called Akeem Lawal. Akeem is said to be the first son of late Governor Alabi Lawal, Kwara's most respected Chief Executive Officer in recent times. The other time I drove through his late father's Admiralty Villa, I spotted a fleet of cars in front of the sprawling building. An instinct tells me that this young man is up to something, and something VERY big it must be. Well, good luck to him. But he must be reminded that a farmer sows in the planting season, and works until the harvest; he does not sit on the grave of his late grandfather and the village's most respected father, hoping to harvest what he never sowed!

We knew Alhaji Mohammed Alabi Lawal, the giant; it took him years of struggle, sacrifice and perseverance to achieve this. We do not know master Akeem Lawal. He can do well to build his own empire like every true born will do without necessarily invoking the spirit of the dead.

Thus, moving about in a purported convoy of late 'Mohammed Lawal PDP Group' will only serve to compound the problem of the party, no matter the amount of denial.

The fact that there has sprung up another group in the garb of the late Lawal, by a handful of his ragtag army, only amounts to playing to the gallery. Kwarans, especially Ilorin people, are very funny lots. Like bees, they swarm around the rich and the privileged like Akeem, who do not know what card to play next.

In a manner that reminiscence 'The Revolt of the Poor' they take back what had been dubiously taken from them before. So, I am not surprised about the arrays of cars I saw parked outside of his father's house in GRA. It is a path I am well familiar with.

If Akeem thinks in his wildest imagination, that the only thing he could do now is to yearn for raw 'power', riding opportunistically on the crest of the honour and prestige that his father struggled his whole life to build, he will not but fail, and woefully it will be.

In any event, he may wish to be advised that every Nigerian leader who has mistaken lunchtime for longevity at the buffet has lost both the battle and his name. If he still has the phone contact of Mr. Gbenga Olawepo, etc, etc, he will do himself a whole lot of favour to asking for a firsthand narration.

I hope he will be better guided before he plunges himself into that bottomless pit!

Bello Bature