Date: 2015-01-27

Efue, a sleeping community in Asa local government of Kwara State, is certainly unpopular. Morning breaks quietly and light brightens on the small Village of Efue every other day, and so do the pains the people encounter.

A visit to Efue reveals a small village that appears untroubled, not because there is no cause for worry; but because the pains the people of that settlement bear for many years is now almost sticking to their faces like a tribal mark.

Poverty is written on every faces, as majority wear tattered clothes, just as women labour vigorously to extract water from the only borehole in that community. The only medical centre is an empty and rickety building that appears every inch like a lunatic asylum. Efue community is not a place where any human being should live in 21st century. Meanwhile, Rasak Atunwa, whose public profile indicates that he is from the deprived Efue/Berikodo, lives like a Saudi king in his imposing mansion in the Fate area of Ilorin, the state capital.

Indeed, Efue is not unlucky because it has no voice or representation in government. The current speaker of Kwara State House of Assembly claims the community as his home; although the people refute this outrightly, describing him as a total stranger who has no root in their community.

Presently, Efue suffers, not inspite of Atunwa but because of him, for aside not seeing to the welfare of the people of that community; Atunwa is also allegedly ensuring that no one else is able to do so. An instance was given of a particular businessman from the community simply identified as Azeez. Azeez, according to investigation, gave the Efue community its one and only transformer that supplies electricity, but some Community leaders claim that Atunwa is now deploying government machinery to intimidate the philanthropic Azeez out of relevance.

It was gathered that Azeez could have joined politics, but for the fear of unknown from Atunwa. And this is the same Atunwa that the elderly Isiaka Ogundele said "he was brought for us to accept him as our son by Lakadiri Kayode Yusuf so as to enable him gain political relevance". This may not be farther from the truth, because Atunwa had no significant impact in any of the communities he claims to be his heritage. From Temidire to Berikodo to Efue, Atunwa, and by extension his party (the APC), has no concrete contribution to the lives of the people they claim to have represented in government for the last twelve (12) years. But Honourable Atunwa is honourable in at least one thing - he himself is not proud of whatever anybody may think of as his achievements in government.

The search for Atunwa's list of achievements in over a decade on his website (http://atunwa1.com) turn up no results. Of course, the biography section reads that "he hails from Efue/Berikodo ward of Asa Local Government Area of Kwara State", but the legacy section is empty, as there was no list of Atunwa's intervention in either of the two communities (Efue/Berikodo) that make up his (?) ward.

As things stand today, Efue/Berikodo is a classic metaphor of a woman undergoing a painful exercise of rape by a powerful man who has been described by his 'people' as an impostor and alien. And the choice confronting Efue and its inhabitants is to either lie down and enjoy the 'Atunwa-rape' or cry out for a rescue from the all-powerful rapist. And unless that rescue come, and fast enough, the Efue community may have signed a pact with eternal agony.