The Desperate Governor
By Abdulrazaq Hamzat
AREWA AGENDA – In the early 2000, Lagendary Fuji artist, Pasuma Wonder released a smashing hit album, titled Americana.
For those not so familiar with Fuji music, Americana was that album, that almost everyone in the Fuji world can’t resist its calling, when the sound invites their dancing step.
The album, which Pasuma released after his US tour was really captivating, not because of philosophy or deep lyricism that Fuji is usually associated with, but because of the ryhtm, style of composition, beat and how it made you move, even in your subconscious mind.
The album is a classical example of entertainment per excellence and every lover of Fuji music, including those who may not necessarily like Pasuma will testify that indeed, the album was irresistible.
No wonder, the oganla of Fuji later nicknamed himself, the entertainer.
After the success of Americana and Pasuma’s undisputable lead standing in the Fuji world, many thought Americana would be his most creative piece of art and critical acclaim project, but the Kwara born artist proved many wrong, when he followed up with another smashing hit album titled “Desperado”.
In Desperado, Pasuma sings (Translated from Yoruba):
“If I told you that I am desperate, I am really desperate to grow and achieve success, I am desperate to travel around the world, but I am not desperate to kill, neither am i desperate to overthrow, I am the desperado enjoying life”.
In “Desperado”, Pasuma basically redefined a popular concept, in the way it had to be rightly defined.
He made us understand that, being desperate could be positive or negative, depending on your reason for desperation, hence is reason for saying he’s desperate to grow and achieve success and not desperate to kill.
In Kwara State, Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq has practicalized desperation in its finest form.
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While some people might define “desperate” as feeling hopeless that a situation is so bad as to be impossible to deal with, every wise person know that, beyond hopelessness, “desperate” is having a great need for something to be done and in the past 15 months that Abdulrahman has been in the saddle, we have seen the governor’s desperation to develop Kwara in every facets of life, with over 150 ongoing road constructions and rehabilitations, ongoing rehabilitation of schools and hospitals across the 16 local government, ongoing development of modern infrastructures, and other land mark plans, such as the state development plan for major cities such as Ilorin, Offa, Omuaran and others.
In the governor’s desperate attempt to empower people at local level, increase their economic capacity and end destitution that is responsible for creating a place like ile arugbo, he didn’t only domesticate federal government’s social investment program, he expanded the scope of the program and institutionalized it through Kwara State House of Assembly, code named Kwara State Social Investment Programme (KWASSIP), giving 100,000 people what they described as owo isowo(trade capital), over 20,000 elders what they described as owo arugbo (elders’ benefit) and several other benefits to different categories of people to stimulate local economy, especially in a post covid 19 era.
The desperation of the governor didn’t end with stimulating local economy and restoring personal dignity, it also propelled him to visualize Kwara on global map of art and technology, leading to the conception of various projects like the technology hub, virtual art center and other related projects that can increase the state’s skills and economic capacity.
To Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, Kwara State cannot afford to waste any opportunity to empower more youths through acquisition of improved mondern facilities and providing skills based capacity building that can catapult them to center of global relevance.
All observers of the state of harmony will confess that, Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq is hungry for success and with his sheer desperation, he has elevated women from obscurity to relevance, empowered youth and brought them out of relegation to the center of decision making, returned governance to local community through community based budgeting priority, but he has also emboldened civil society for improved accountability.
To say it differently, governor Abdulrahman can simply be described as a desperado and indeed, he’s desperate to remove Kwara from squalor and gradually, he’s suceeding.
Abdulrazaq Hamzat is the Convener of Kwara Must Change
Arewa Agenda is a Publication of young writers from Northern Nigeria towards Peaceful Coexistence and National Development.
