Over three decades ago, I had the rare privilege of working at the defunct Sunday Concord newspaper, professionally guided by the late Dele Giwa, journalist extraodinaire.
Giwa had always told us at our usual weekly editorial meetings:
“If you cannot write the purpose of truth as you saw it, heard it, look for another profession, certainly not journalism”.
This exactly, is what I want to do today.
Your Excellency, doubtless, your eight months in the governance of Kwara State have been full of commendable achievements yet some known, unknown envious critics of your style of governance have been losing sleep in throwing vitriolics at you.
At the very beginning after your swearing-in, the sing-song from the envious group was: What good thing can come out of AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq as governor of Kwara State?
Eight months into your first term governance of the state, you have through your scorecard chased many of the critics into their valleys of shame.
Good. But there is need to let you know that one of the admirable qualities of a successful man is the courage to step forward and take charge. Taking responsibility is one of the greatest features that distinguishes a winner from a loser. A winner will always say, I need to do something” while a loser is fond of saying, Something needs to be done.”
In your desire to do something spectacular in Kwara State, God has placed people within your reach who are willing to be of tremendous help. If you don’t accept their help, they will be unfulfilled because they are not using their gifts. God hasn’t called you to be governor to do everything, for everbody, in every situation.
You can’t be all things to all people, all the time. There is nothing wrong with needing help and asking for it; in fact, it is wrong to need help and be too complacent to ask.
The children of God during their journey to the promised land looked up to Moses, their leader, for everything and he tried to be ‘all things to all people’. And this was when he reached a breaking point. So his father-in-law suggested that he should delegate some authority, and let others make the less important decisions while he made the more important ones. It worked! Moses did what Jethro suggested and it enabled him to succeed in his assignment.
No matter what the critics say, I have seen some very competent persons within your executive team. All they require is a regular rebranding for the efficient execution of government business according to your campaign promises. This is so, as no man is ever at his best until a challenge is thrown at him. There are still, however, more loopholes to be filled to make robust the running of your government.
Hereafter, you are to take responsibility for what goes right and responsibility for the wrong. Why? Your foot soldiers are collectively helping you to drive your dream to a success point in Kwara State. But for you to be more successful in the pusuit of this dream for Kwara, let me point out some dream deflators.
Your Excellency, the reason why so many of our party men rose up against you is as a result of a quick-fix mentality, a politcal virus which your predecessors often transferred to partymen after every election. It is the sharing of the booty of a ‘political war’ after the elections have been won. They are not comfortable with your style of ‘delayed gratification’.
One of my scouts, an APC youth from Fate-Tanke, informed me this past weekend that at one of their meetings recently, the general complaint against you was that there has been no financial patronage from you, so they are beginning to receive money from the opposition PDP. OF course you should know where the money is coming from. Like you, I believe in delayed gratification because this is a collective product that helps in the success of the business of governance.
You must also not be enmeshed in the trap of pleasing people. Not everyone will be exited about your dream of a New Kwara. Some have been criticising you for striving for something they don’t agree with. Others have been threatening because you are going somewhere with your dream and life and they are unhappy. But if you allow these naysayers in the state in your head, they’ll abort your dream; you’ll never achieve the success that will leverage you into a second term of office. Therefore, avoid the trap of people pleasing.
Your Excellency, avoid firing blame bullets. Jesus Christ was described as the best man in continum. He was always on course.
He never allowed the Pharasees and the Saducees, his greatest and most devious critics to destract him. I laughed some of your detractors to scorn a few days ago, when I read a report that you were commanded, compelled, summoned to the presidency and was rebuked by the President, Muhammadu Buhari for destroying the Ile-Arugbo property of Baba Saraki. Cheap Blackmail that indeed revealed the ignorance of your critics. No wonder, someone defined “ignorance as being ignorant of one’s own ignorance”.
Let them do the shooting but don’t fire. It’s very simple. It’s the ploy of your detractors to waste your tremendous energy and take energy away from your dream. If you are the one shooting the blame bullets, it will allienate people – people you need to make your dream for a new Kwara come true.
Remember, Your Excellency, that you are responsible to the community herein referred to as Kwara State. An anonymous Asian writer once noted that “societies are not destroyed much by the actions of bad people but by the inactivity of the good people”.
I am aware that people always want to blame satan for every bad thing that befalls them. They hold him responsible for every abandoned project like your predecessors. Many times, however, the devil is only being used as a scapegoat.
Satan, your critics, cannot defeat you without your cooperating with them. I believe, that in this journey to a New Kwara, satanic critics, detractors, traducers cannot stop us from fulfilling this destiny.
If you can catch the picture of what the above group looked like after the Ile-Arugbo debacle, you’ll see why they cannot defeat you. It was the picture of shame and frustration. Nothing has happened to cancel that defeat and they’ll not recover from that defeat.
It is indeed time to overtake them and recover all. May your steps be divinely ordered by God.
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