On a recent edition of Channels Television's Politics Today, Senator Saliu Mustapha, who represents Kwara Central in the National Assembly, made a claim that deserves a direct and honest response. Discussing the political realignment under way in Kwara State ahead of 2027, the senator argued that Kwara politics has historically been decided by competence rather than zoning, and cited Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq's 2023 defeat of Alhaji Shuaib Yaman Abdullahi (Danmasani Shonga), a Kwara North indigene and the Peoples Democratic Party's candidate that year, as his proof.

The implication was unmistakable to anyone listening: that Kwara North lacks the political strength or unity required to produce a winning governorship candidate. As a member representing Edu, Moro and Patigi at the National Assembly, three of the six local government areas that make up Kwara North, I feel duty-bound to set the record straight.

Let us first deal with the senator's example on its own terms. A single election, decided by a dozen factors - incumbency, national political tides, party machinery, campaign resources - is not proof of a unity deficit across an entire senatorial district. In 2023, Governor AbdulRazaq contested as a sitting incumbent, backed by the full weight of state government resources and a ruling party riding the momentum of a fresh presidential victory. Mr Yaman, by contrast, entered that race without the benefit of incumbency, having decamped to the PDP only the previous year, against an opposition party that was itself contending with fractures of its own nationwide. To reduce that contest to a referendum on Kwara North's unity is not analysis; it is convenient arithmetic.

Second, and far more revealing, is the timing of the senator's newfound concern. Senator Mustapha did not discover his passion for internal democracy in a vacuum. He entered the APC governorship primary on 22 May 2026 and lost, fair and square, to the Speaker of the Kwara State House of Assembly, Engr. Yakubu Danladi-Salihu, himself a Kwara North indigene from Baruten Local Government. That loss alone might have been survivable. What followed was not: the Independent National Electoral Commission subsequently published Governor AbdulRazaq as the APC candidate for the Kwara Central Senatorial seat; the senator's own seat. In a single election cycle, Senator Mustapha lost both the governorship ticket he pursued and the Senate seat he already held. It was only after this that his passionate defence of process and collective unity found its voice.

There is a name for grievance that surfaces only after personal loss, and it is not principle. If the senator's concern were genuinely about due process, one would expect the same standard applied when, within hours of resigning from the APC, he was handed the Peoples Democratic Party's ticket for that same Kwara Central seat without contesting a single primary. Where was the internal democracy he now champions when the PDP simply handed him a ticket? A man who accepts by fiat from one party what he rejects as imposition from another has not been fighting for democracy. He has simply been fighting for himself.

Senator Mustapha has also described himself as one of the founding fathers of the All Progressives Congress in Kwara State. Founders build institutions to outlast personal ambition; they do not abandon them the moment those institutions decline to serve that ambition further.

Kwara State prides itself as one of Nigeria's most peaceable and religiously observant states, where loyalty, patience and fairness are values we teach our children before we teach them politics. It would honour those values, and indeed the senator's own legacy, to extend to Kwara North the same grace the party's leadership has now extended: a chance, after twenty-seven unbroken years of democratic governance in our state, to lead.

That chance belongs, rightly, to Engr. Yakubu Danladi-Salihu. Since Nigeria's return to democracy in 1999, Kwara North has never produced a governor, not for a single day. Kwara Central has led. Kwara South has led. It is Kwara North's turn, not as a favour, but as a matter of basic fairness within a state that calls itself one family. Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq deserves commendation, not opprobrium, for recognising this reality and backing a Kwara North son to succeed him.

Let me be unambiguous: Kwara North is united. We have proven this before, coming out in our numbers to support candidates from other zones in the spirit of statewide unity, asking for nothing in return but fairness when our turn comes. We will prove it again in 2027; not through rhetoric, but at the ballot box, as we vote en masse for the re-election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for Engr. Yakubu Danladi-Salihu as Governor of Kwara State, and for every candidate of the All Progressives Congress on our ballot papers. I also use this opportunity to thank Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq for the consistent support and attention his administration has extended to Kwara North since its inception to date. That support has not gone unnoticed, and, God willing, it will not go unrewarded.

Saba is a member of the Federal House of Representatives Edu/Moro/Patigi Federal Constituency, Kwara State.