Among the literary creatures of Ilorin emirate, my brother, Ishaq Moddibo Kawu stands tall in the contemporary generation and he has never hidden that fact and the privileges it attracts. One of such privileges was the opportunity he had to speak to some members of the PDP as he recalled in his most recent literary production in The Vanguard. Of course as one of the leaders in the media industry he has a veritable platform to process his thoughts for consumption sometimes, and very unfortunate, without giving due consideration to the quality of such products.

That is why reading through that piece, like many others in the recent past, on rebranding Kwara according to his dream and that of some leaders of the PDP, one is left with no other conclusion other than that he allowed what is now very clear as personal hatred or what a colleague referred to as pathological vendetta, for an individual to blot the edge of his pen.

But upon all the literary assault unleashed upon the person of Senator Bukola Saraki and the incumbent administration in Kwara State which the PDP has enlisted his support to unseat, it is clear that Modibo has failed the test of a true critic. A sincere critic will look at issues dispassionately, not allowing personal biases becloud his sense of judgment because he knows that many would use his conclusions as basis for further judgment and might be unwittingly misled if the critic had thrown away the garb of the impassionate observer and don the cap of I-am-one-of-them participant.

I was bewildered when I read from Moddibo Kawu that allowing private investors to undertake businesses in the state where public ownership had proved unfruitful is misgovernance or illegal. In basic economics, I was taught  that government has no business in business, or has Kawu forgotten that elementary principle of economics? Or was that not the basis for setting up the Bureau of Public Enterprise by the federal government, to transfer moribund and unprofitable public enterprises to private investors who can then manage them and bring profit to government? This is why I believe the government rightly transfered the management of the state diagnostic centre for proper social and professional management while retaining ownership. It is easy for Kawu to dismiss the relevance of the Harmony Advanced Medical Diagnostic Centre since he can afford the luxury of traveling abroad for medical examination, but not the likes of Abdullah Abdulganiyu whose detection of stones saved him from early death. Abdullah had suffered all weekend from what he assumed to be food poisoning. A timely scan at the Diagnostic Centre revealed he had kidney stones which were flushed out during a procedure at the centre. When a visiting foreign radiologist saw the films produced at the centre, his astonished response said it all: “These are beautiful pictures. They must have used the most current CTs”.

It is of course easy for a critic of Kawu’s acknowledged political bias to see nothing good in the establishment of the International Aviation College. But then, the impact of having the aviation college, solely owned by the state government (to correct the deliberate distortion that it belongs to private investor) in Ilorin cannot be overestimated.  Apart from providing jobs for some indigenes of the state, it has added to the social and economic influence of the state. Khadijat Adigun who got her life time ambition fulfilled as the first female pilot from the state will definitely not agree with any skewed position on the college. Other trained pilots from the state now in the fleets of both local and international airlines will spit at any jaundiced and hatred-laden opinion from the likes of Kawu.  Just like the Shonga Farms, jointly owed by the state government, the farmers and the consortium of banks, which Kawu continue to disparage.

No doubt, Kawu would earn approbation in the midst of men and women whose only goal now is to bring Bukola Saraki down. And the latter’s offences are very well known: he has refused to side with those who believe they should be the only ones he would, to borrow from Kawu,  “cycle, recycle, rehabilitated” etc. But Saraki has made local government chairmen, honourable members of state and national assemblies, senators and governors, of children of those who hitherto were followers and watchers of those who had the privilege of coming from “renowned” and “well-to-do” families. To Kawu and his new comrades, we should continue to be second class citizens. God forbid.

If anyone had grievances with the way Saraki ran the state in eight years, there are legal avenues to tackle him which, I am aware, people opposed to him have tried severally. And if they have not succeeded in almost 12 years, that should tell us there is something wrong with them or their approach.

As an observer, I don’t think the problem is with their approach; rather I think the problem has to do with their persons; their inner beings and what is actually pushing them to seek a Bukola downfall. I think they actually want to be like Bukola; they want to be called Leader, even if they have not done anything to justify that appellation. It is an inner dream being covered with the cloak of criticism against the man Bukola. And seeing that they could not achieve that aim after the demise of his father, the reverred Olusola Saraki, the next most convenient thing is to descend on the son and seek to destroy him.

If not, why would anyone claim Bukola Saraki has done nothing, first for Ilorin and then for Kwara State? Kwara State University is nothing? Ilesha-Kosubosu Road, which the then federal government promised to do when Bukola was a toddler but refused to do until the then toddler came to the throne and did is nothing?  Putting Professor Shuaib Oba in the Federal Character Commission is nothing?

Was it wrong of him to have insisted in 2011 that fielding another candidate from his family to succeed him was unreasonable; that it would expose the state and the family name to ridicule? Would a social critic have applauded that choice? So it was wrong when in 1999 Nigerian political leaders agreed to allow the South-west produce the then president to assuage the feeling of alienation the region had suffered over the years?

If Bukola Saraki is leader today, was it his making? His father had many notable contemporaries in the field of politics but who among them could do what he did and did for Kwara until his death? Is this the first time to have a political hegemony? Has vendetta beclouded Moddibo Kawu’s sense of history? One expected a well read Kawu to always review his speeches before going viral with them. No doubt, a piece like the one in reference has done great damage to his reputation among some of us who used to look up to him.

People now say that he vowed to bring Bukola Saraki down because he has offended him and hence would never forgive him. Haba! What about the teaching of the holy Qur’an? Even in this holy month of Ramadan? If the path Moddibo has chosen is vengeance, let it be separated from the business of Kwara State’s liberation.