Date: 2015-09-11

We aware of the newest slide into brazen threat and intimidation by those in authorities in our dear state - Kwara to stop what they described as 'Attacks' on the leader and the All Progressives Congress (APC) leadership in the state. They are also uncomfortable that the state government was not spared in our activities.

I received quite a number of phone calls from family members and friends asking me to take my personal security very dearly and watch carefully. I understand what their concerns were and exactly what it should be. Thank you for expressing your love at yet another critical time in my political career.

We are very conscious of what it will mean to attempt speaking the truth to the power, particularly, one that has been overrated and pampered over time. We have weighed our options and elected to be on the side of the truth though it is treaded by a few that are called.

The threats are not considered lame at all but the bullets cannot kill the truth, now and the time to come. I knew from the first day in 1998 when we started participating actively in politics that we are in to unsettle the status quo. Many slipped along the line but I have continued in this path until today.

Where Kwara APC leadership failed?

The first man to show his displeasure with a group we floated within the Kwara APC was the party chairman, Hon. Ishola Balogun-Fulani who thought it was an attempt to fractionalize the party. He sent a member of the state executive council from Asa local government to me, requesting for a meeting at his office in GRA. Our members and friends decided we hold the meeting in a most neutral venue but the chairman overruled it.

The chairman later convened a meeting of the Central Working Committee of the party with a scion of the old ACN in attendance, there and then they directed that the ACN scion should reach out to us and prevail on us to stop what Sulyman Buhari and Sara Adebayo described as an attack on the leader. It was the same meeting Sara Adebayo was referring to in the recorded telephone conversation she had with one of us recently. Please, check any of our writings and determine if they are slanderous, libellous or inciting.

The content of Sarah's conversation as derogatory as it was (to the office of the president of Nigeria) has not been punished by any known authority in the party. Sulyman Buhari went further to share another article maligning a national officer of the party on his timeline and we provided them with evidence. That has not been punished as well.

It became interesting when the man later mandated by the party chairman at the meeting with ACN scion to prevail on us or reach out to our leader was recently named a Special Adviser to the Governor. I know and continue to hold that 'A man shall not live by bread alone'. Politics should not be a means to eke livelihood!

What have I done wrong? That the ilk of Raheem Adedoyin, a veteran journalist; Muyideen Akorede (Ph.D), an authority in communication and media handler of the governor or Wahab Oba, Chief Press Secretary to the Governor be allowed to handle public image of the government. Can Sulyman Buhari or Sarah Adebayo match LAK Jimoh in discourse of any intellectual base? Never! Not even the senior clan - Usman Bibire Ajape.

When I heard that the trio mentioned above were on Radio to represent my party on Thursday afternoon; I asked myself how did I get here? Of all maggots in the toilet... Incidentally the trio are from the same local government area.

Sacrificial Lamb?

LAK Jimoh said on Saturday on Kwara Today monitored on RayPower Fm, that we are docile in this state, since we agree with everything and describe it as the Will of God. When we show little or no effort to dislocate our overlords.

As I had stated in my early response to the threat or watch placed upon me, I wish to submit all my writings to security scrutiny to ascertain my contravention of any law guiding public discourse or otherwise. I dare to tell you for the umpteenth time that security apparatuses in Nigeria of today are not your dolls.

One man that has been very prominent in the convolution of the truth is a former commissioner in the state, he is in constant touch with my family and consistently complaining of me attacking their leader. If there is anybody that has been so much denigrated in their camp, it is my own leader and national leader of our party. We are aware that the coming days shall be very, very challenging. God is our strength!

My take

Until and when the party leadership in Kwara State agree that it cannot be business as usual, we will continue to vent our views at well considered intervals. Our break in the last 2 weeks was to allow the party leadership to adjust and face the new day. As for the government, we understand that we are on AUTOPILOT.

Thank you now and then.

Kayode Oyin-Zubair
Caucus for Progressive Change,
Kwara State.
Friday, 11th September, 2015