Social commentator and pro-democracy activist, Comrade Razaq Olokoba, Convener, Kwara Central Volunteers for Saliu Mustapha Senatorial Ambition, and Founder, Razaq Kolade Olokoba (RKO), Political Network, spoke with selected journalists in Lagos recently on issues bothering on the Kwara State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC). He also speaks on how the emergence of Saliu Mustapha as the Kwara Central Senatorial District candidate has brought relative peace to Kwara APC. Excerpts:

What informed the founding of the Kwara Central Volunteers for Saliu Mustapha’s Senatorial Project?

You know we live in a society where our youth begin to emulate wrong role models, and that is a big challenge for some of us who are older than they are. Their role models nowadays are actually an insult to us. Role models are supposed to be nation builders. But by the time you get wrong role models, the society is doomed. We just have to reverse the trend. So, all hands must be on deck to change the mentality and orientation of the youth to know that their role models must not be somebody that can jeopardize and ruin their futures. When you see a real role model, you would know that he is someone that has a lot of positive things to offer the society and if we find one, it is then our collective responsibility to rally round him. That is one of the reasons we are supporting Mallam Saliu Mustapha to play a major role in the politics of Kwara State.

Who is this Saliu Mustapha, if we may ask?

Mallam Saliu Mustapha is the Kwara State Central Senatorial District with the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to contest for a seat at the Senate to represent the good people of Kwara Central senatorial District from 2023.

Recently, you organized an endorsement rally for the same candidate with other Civil Society Organisations. What is the excitement and interest all about?

I am from Kwara but I live in Lagos. I remember clearly when we were growing up; we knew who our role models were. We read a lot of books about Tafawa Balewa, Ahmadu Bello, Nnamdi Azikiwe and the late sage, Obafemi Awolowo. Those were the people who put their lives on the line for us to have independence. We cannot also forget the likes of Anthony Enahoro who moved the first motion for our independence. Alexandra the Great conquered the world at the age of 19. Those are the people we read about that inspired our lives to want to be like them. But sadly, that is not the case today. The trend now is about wrong values like prostitution, hackers, yahoo-yahoo, drugs, cultism and all sort of negative values and the society is responsible for that. In finding solutions, that is part of why we fished out Saliu Mustapha, a philanthropist, a complete gentleman and somebody who is clear about what he wants for the society. With him in the Senate, we are going to have a more dutiful and more honourable parliamentarian. The reason for pushing a good material to the parliament is to be able to push your argument for the good of the people of his constituency and I know that Saliu Mustapha has the capacity in abundance. Another reason is that the political tension in Kwara State now requires an intervention. It appears as if the Kwara State Chapter of the APC is under a spell. The Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq was doing his own thing, the Information and Culture Minister, Lai Muhammed, who is one of the major leaders, was moving towards another direction. A lot of members have left the APC now. Hakeem Lawal is now in the SDP, Professor Oba is also in another party entirely now. This is the testimony that the party is in disarray. So, the emergence of Saliu Mustapha in the Kwara chapter of the APC is a saving grace. His popularity and acceptability has consumed whatever grudges anybody might have been bearing against others in the party. It has doused tension and consumed any crisis that has been bedeviling the party in the state. In short, Saliu Mustapha is a lifeline for the Kwara State chapter of the APC and it is interesting to note that when he emerged the Kwara Central Senatorial candidate on the ticket of the APC, it was never through violence. It was peaceful because all well-meaning stakeholders who wanted peace collaborated to make sure that he emerged, and since his emergence, peace has started reigning.

What do you think informed the crisis within the Kwara APC?

At the inception of the crisis, we blamed the leadership of the APC in Kwara State. We felt that there were formidable forces that came together to form the party. You have the ACN, you have the CPC, you have part of APGA, you have the ANPP and you have even part of the PDP and people are bound to have different views about things. Remember they came together with different programmes and different manifestos. If you want to marry all the parties together, you must be prepared for disagreement. You should be getting ready for managing the envisaged crisis from the embryonic state for the future. There should have been a body of respected leaders and party elders for crisis resolution responsibility. They would be saddled with the responsibility of a crisis resolution mechanism. But sadly, APC doesn’t have that from the state to the national level and I count that against the party as a fundamental error. In Kwara, when the crisis began to emerge, coloration and profiling crept in like who belonged where? But if the body of elders we are talking about had been put in place, the crisis would have been nipped in the bud before germination and growth beyond redemption. Against this background, I am appealing to the government through the media that the body should be constituted now without further delay. It is necessary because politics is not an error free process. There must be errors and people must try to resolve the errors. Errors as in how to elect candidates, how to prepare programmes and manifestos, errors in the writing of the constitution and errors in the composition of the exco.

Do you see the governor moving towards that direction?

Yes, the Governor is doing his best to do so and he has gone to an extent of breaking through, and I can assure you, the coming of Saliu Mustapha has assisted the party tremendously. So many people, who were not happy with so many things in the APC have now come back to the party and I believe so many others will also come back to the party for the Saliu Mustapha factor. Get me right please. I am not holding a brief for the APC because I am not an APC member. But, as a Nigerian, if there is a decision that would affect the lives of Nigerians, one should pay attention to it. Issues like who becomes Vice to Atiku, who becomes Vice to Tinubu, who becomes Vice to Obi and who becomes Vice to Kwankwaso and so on must be our collective concern. All these are important to us because it is about our life. Those people who are going to preside over our life must be a great concern to us and we must ask questions on how they want to handle our life. We should ask them about their programmes for security, education, health, sports, and the economy and so on. And that is why crises in APC and PDP in Kwara State are going to be resolved is a concern to me, and I think the emergence of Saliu Mustapha has assisted in that direction of my concern for the state. He has that carriage; he has that charisma and profile of a problem solver. Actually, he has the required capacity to assist the party to put behind it all the differences of the past and move forward for the benefit of the generality of the citizenry. His emergence has revealed that he has been doing all things expected of a mover of peace. I discovered that he has been making painful sacrifices to the party. Little wonder then that a lot of aggrieved party members are coming back after his emergence as the Kwara Central Senatorial candidate of the APC.

How do you feel about his emergence vis a vis the governorship election in Kwara State as well as in the presidential election in 2023?

Well, minority plus minority becomes a majority. If we have Mustapha in all the states of Nigeria, the presidential candidate of the party should go and sleep. If we have somebody formidable as Mustapha is in politics of Kwara State in all the 36 states of the federation, and they all work towards same direction for the party, we will arrive at the mathematical calculation of minority plus minority that will be equal to a majority, and that is what I will encourage all the political parties in all the states to do. I know Saliu Mustapha’s network will reach other important personalities like him in Kwara and in other states too. So, if we put all those pieces together, the party would be able to coast home victoriously. His status will rub off on others in the race. Recall that the three groups are endorsing three major candidates namely, Mallam Saliu Musthapha for Senate, Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq for a second term in office and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu for president. The groups are the Razaq Kolade Olokoba (RKO), Political Network, Kwara Central Volunteers for Saliu Muatapha and Coalition of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).