A lot of people praised Abdulrazaq Abdulrahman when he appointment a cabinet that tilted towards women. Not a few people however raised eyebrows over their capabilities and ability to stand tall when they meet their contemporaries in other states. ‘If he had to appoint women, why not look for those whose pedigree we know and who are established and known in their fields and not neophyites in the name of patronage’ they wondered.
But the Kwara State Governor knew what he was up to. The insinuation in some quarters now is that he must have picked them based on his own ‘special’ consideration. Or how else do you explain the wranglings in the states a few weeks back when two Commissioners allegedly exchanged blows over issues which hitherto could have been resolved if there was really a King on the throne.
Kwara’s problems are many. Here is a Governor who does not deem it fit to call State Executive Council meetings. He was quoted weeks back as claiming he last met his late Chief of Staff, 93 days before the latter’s death. This indicated that the State was either on auto pilot or meetings were not held to coordinate activities of Government.
Someone even suggested that the State Executive Council had not met since he swore them in. Meanwhile, all the Commissioners have allegedly been complaining but most could not confront Rahman.
Sources in Kwara confirm that the Commissioner for Finance is at the centre of State entrenched fraud. Indeed, every direction you turn to, her name crops up. This is either when you are talking about deductions from Local Government allocations monthly, where 200,000 is raked in every month or inflated tractor rentals which was done at her behest. Abujareporters gathered that she has been living in a 60,000 per day hotel since May, 2019. And all the Commissioners have to go through her to get anything done.
Now the scenario is that the position she now occupies in the life of the Governor was s initially was occupied by another lady who happens to be in the same cabinet.
This perhaps explains the rancour that was generated over resignation and rescinding of resignation weeks back. Sources confirmed that the Commissioner indeed resigned but had to be persuaded to stay on by leaders in the State who were called upon by a highly embarrassed Governor to help him save his face.
To smoothen the whole thing, the State Assembly as well as other stakeholders were called upon to look at the accounts earlier declared clean by the agents of the Government all in a bid to give a facade that it was the opposition carrying rumours of unfounded pilfering of funds by the Finance Commissioner.
The latest development however centres around the Governor’s wife who is said to be uncomfortable with the stories as it pertains to the two Commissioners. Impeccable sources claimed she is unsettled that the two women who are seemingly fighting over her husband are doing so oblivious of her existence. There have been unfounded stories that the Governor might eventually take one of them for a wife, and this again has not gone down well with her.
Kwara has more than enough challenges for any Governor to now busy himself with settling problems among his team or ‘close confidants’. The bad media Abdulrazaq Abdulrahman has generated over and over since he got to power, not on developmental issues but mundane and self-serving things shows what the State might have to live with till 2023
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