Dear BJ,
Your open letter dated 2nd January, 2023 which you intended to be some sort of a new year missile was well received. While it is neither my wish nor in my character to engage in any kind of brickbats with you or anyone else for that matter in the public domain, I am afraid you have left me with no choice at this point. However, before I proceed to address some of the issues you raised in your letter, let me first make some salient observations, especially as it relates to your character as a person.
While you have proudly carried the sobriquet of ‘Omoluabi’, your behavior reflects otherwise, if indeed an Omoluabi is someone who does as he says. In your letter, you rightly noted that even though “we are political opponents, we are not enemies.”
Since this contest began, I have consciously refrained from any issues or innuendos that may bother on calumny or mudsliding, just as I have ensured that my team adhered strictly to only decent engagements.
You, on the other hand, have seemingly taken this contest as though it is the last battle before the Judgement Day, and the amount of desperation and crudity you have shown and displayed so far has left me completely bewildered.
You said in your letter that “we were brothers and friends before this contest; and (you) hope and pray that we shall remain so after the elections, regardless of the outcome.” But brothers have a different way of waging wars, because even in their moments of animosity, they would be conscious of the need to fight with some dignity and respect certain boundaries. But it seems you have little regard for any relationship when a contest is involved, which is why you have failed to temper your campaign strategy to accommodate our history of ‘brotherhood and friendship’ as you claimed.
When I was about throwing my hat into the ring to contest this very election, I was warned by several people who have had a bitter dose of what they described as your crude method to be ready for the media ‘war’ that was coming; they told me that relationships do not matter to you when politics sets in and I had naively wished that away under the assumption that as brothers, momentary contest and even ambitions would not come in the way of our long years of friendship. It turned out I was wrong about you and they were right.
True to prediction, since the commencement of active campaigns a few months back, you and your team have made my person the subject of your wanton ‘debates’ on both the traditional and new media, while the issues that concern the people you seek to represent at the Senate have been banished to the back seat.
Come to think of it, since you began your campaigns, I have since observed that if you are not writing under a pseudo attacking my personality or using your alleged online media to ‘arrange’ my wanton ‘grilling’ and ‘arrest’ by the EFCC, you’re directly questioning the source of my wealth on the BBC; a question you did not bother to ask when sometimes last year, you, Bolaji Abdullahi, sought helplessly to benefit from this same wealth you now seek to discredit. For personal reasons, I would prefer for now not to go into any further details about that scenario and several others.
In spite of all these, I have maintained a dignified silence not because I lack the will or the arsenals to respond to your coercive campaign method, but because I have always believed that politics will always come and go, but relationships will continue to endure.
This is the basis upon which I have related with you and others like you over time, in spite of our divergent political interests. As always, I am reiterating, here and now, that no matter the temptations to do otherwise, I will continue to maintain fidelity to that personal principle of running a clean, issue-based campaign devoid of mudslinging.
Now, to the issue of my remarks on your ‘big idea’ campaign which inspired your letter. While you misinterpreted my statement to mean that I was underplaying the value and significance of ideas, big or small, the statement was clear enough to decipher even to the average viewers or readers.
For the sake of emphasis, I’ll like to reiterate that while ideas are good, but I believe we’ve gone past the stage of merely mouthing it for the sake of the political optics. But we are beyond that. We should be at the point of implementing creative ideas and innovative solutions to solve our people’s pressing problems through both legislative and executive channels.
While it is obvious that we both have a different conception of what ideas are or should be for our people, it’s regrettable that, in your usual self-glorification, you already branded my belief as “cynical no-thinking.”
I am afraid that your definition of the concept, especially as it relates to the welfare and wellbeing of the people we both seek to represent, is clearly at variance with what ‘ideas” truly mean. You have relegated the word to constant newspaper publications, frivolous attacks on your opponents and media features. Idea, to me, is the base word for ideology; and any ideology that has no positive impact on the people should be rejected outrightly, as I am sure yours would be by February 25th.
Like you rightly pointed out, ideas are nurtured by investments. I should, therefore, ask you how have your much touted ‘big ideas’ delivered any tangible impact since you came into the public space nearly 20 years ago? In other words, how come your so-called ‘big ideas’ have not translated to meaningful progress in the lives of the people of Ilorin in particular and Kwara State in general? What impacts did your ‘big ideas’ have on our people when you served as a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria?
If you’re by any chance still confused about the answer, just take the pain to ask the teachers in secondary schools and colleges of education in Kwara state who suffered untoward indignity in your hands while you held sway as a Commissioner; the players, athletes and coaches in the Kwara United who suffered relegation during your reign as a sport minister; and our young, vibrant but unemployed youth across the district who received next to no interventions in their lives from you, unlike their counterparts from Edo, Delta and Anambra who you preferred more and gainfully employed, when you served as a Minister of Youth and Sport for nearly four years.
BJ, I believe our people have suffered too much and for so long in the hands of arrogant intellectuals (or so-called) like yourself who always believe that their own conceptions of ideas and ideations are what should matter to the people, and would do anything, by any means, to ram it into their minds even if it does not fit into the people’s socio-political and historical realities. For me, I believe the people, our people, have had enough of this so-called ‘big ideas’ that have led them to nowhere, and this may explain why they now cynically describe your much touted ‘Big Ideas’ as “Big-for- Nothing Ideas.”
Have you not realized that your ‘big ideas’ mantra has remained elusive and nebulous to the people since you invented it? The reason for this is simple. An idea that is not humane, that does not take cognisance of the socio-cultural distinction of the people ultimately leads to nowhere for the people. Big ideas that are cooked with the ingredient of arrogant assumptions always lead to nowhere, as it’s evident from your various educational policies while you served as Commissioner.
Considering that you have this grandiose belief that your ‘big ideas’ mantra connotes some never-seen-before solutions, I will do you the honour of educating you on what big ideas mean to our people, which is clearly different from your own understanding of it.
‘Big ideas’ to our people is about when a privileged few like you and I get to positions of authority, elected or appointed, we should be conscious enough to know that we hold the offices at the instance and mercy of the people and not the other way round as you displayed in your various times as a public servant.
‘Big ideas’ to our people is about understanding that Kwara is lagging behind in the numbers of her sons and daughters in the federal civil service, especially at the middle and upper cadres (as indicated recently by Dr. Shuiab Moddibo Belgore at the IEDPU National Conference at the Emir’s palace) and make stringent efforts to correct the anomalies, and not import people from Edo and Delta states like you did during your reign as a Minister, believing our people were not good enough for the plum positions.
‘Big ideas’ is about understanding the fierce urgency of redressing the cynicism in the minds of our people on our democracy and democratic institutions occasioned by the obvious failure of people like you who have had the privileges of representing the people in time past at the state & federal levels, but failed woefully to justify the people’s confidence.
‘Big ideas’ is about harnessing the potentials embedded in our present bodies of laws to better the lots of the people of all ages and callings irrespective of their educational qualifications, religious conviction, social standing and creed.
‘Big ideas’ is about understanding that there is more to the National Assembly – its politics or processes – than merely possessing the ability to rabble-rouse as you are obviously mistaking it.
The National Assembly, as I have known and studied it for nearly two decades, requires much more than garrulity. It requires a robust political network, the political will, the incumbency factor, the ability to lobby and more. And without mincing words, I make bold to say that of all those standing for election to represent the Kwara Central at the Senate in this election, the people would find me far more worthy, better placed and better suited to stand and fight for their cause.
*And the reasons are not far-fetched. At every occasion (empathize every) since early twenties that I have been an active partaker in the socio-political activities of this noble community and I have been called upon at her time of needs by her custodians, I have risen up unconditionally to it with everything I have got – be it knowledge, personal hard-earned resources, political, national and international networks. And all these have been done strictly in my private capacity as an illustrious son with a verifiable and ascertainable pedigree. Can you, in good conscience, beat your chest and say the same thing about yourself even as you have got different opportunities in recent time to serve this community at different levels?*
BJ, you’ve had not one, not two, not even three chances in time past to prove that you had these so-called ideas, but you have failed woefully to translate those ideas to tangible impacts in the lives of our people. Shouldn’t our people have enough of these so-called ‘big ideas’ already? These ideas that are hardly worth the paper upon which they are written, if at all?
Make no mistake, what the people want to see now, after long years of cynicism and disappoinment as a result of the failure of a few like you, are real tangible impacts in their lives beyond mere rhetoric; things that improve their socio-economic wellbeing day by day.
On philanthropy, I have consistently wondered why you’re obsessively critical of my modest act of generosity to the people. Who says ideas and philanthropy cannot coexist in the same person or space? The presidential candidate of our great party, the APC, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu is an example of someone who served the public with his intellect and financial wherewithal.
Why do you think a politician merely needs to think up policies and solutions, and has no business giving freely if he can afford it? I believe it’s possible to do both, and that is what I have chosen to do in my belief that a multipronged approach would help accelerate the betterment we seek for our people.
While we wait endlessly for ‘big ideas’ to bear fruits, we won’t watch our people suffer and do nothing. So, for your information, no matter how much you try to badmouth or criminalise my acts of generosity, I assure you that I will not stop to prioritise targeted philanthropy while working on long lasting and durable government interventions as an elected senator, God willing.
I do not claim to have all the answers or possess some grandiose ‘big ideas,’ but I certainly know how to ask the right questions, from the right sources in order to help our people get the desired answers and solutions.
In any case, I know, just as I’m sure you do, that the people are not asking for much. They are also not asking for the representative that is the most garrulous or sensational; they are asking for the representative that can speak to them in the language they understand, which is that of development and socio-economic impacts like the Harmony IPP Step-Down project that was abandoned for years by the government you served in but was energized by yours sincerely for the benefit of the people of Gambari, Ibagun, Akerebiata, Kulende, Sobi, Sango, etc. That’s impact.
Therefore, when I say I’ve moved past your ‘big ideas’ stage, the same ideas you’ve had chances in time past to deliver but failed, I meant to tell you and your ilks that never again would we allow our people to be bamboozled with big grammar disguised as ‘big ideas.’
Finally, while I acknowledge your cynical gratitude for the renovation of Ubandawaki Health Centre, I must note that your retort on the intervention is particularly indicative of a mindset that is heavily laden with suspicion and envy. For your information, my humanitarian intervention in the health sector in Kwara State is not a new thing. There is hardly any primary health care centre in Kwara Central today, including the Pakata Health Centre, that you won’t find orthopedic beds and medical equipment donated by the Saliu Mustapha Foundation since as far back as 2020.
You think the response to the genuine request made by the people of Ubandawaki was calculated to embarrass you – no it wasn’t. But I should hasten to inform you that the only embarrassment was the irony contained in your own submission on the issue. In your desperation to prove that our intervention in Ubandawaki was misdirected, you made mention of Pakata Health Centre which you said does not have a single doctor. But in your own words, that health centre has “served our people for generations,” how come you were unable to facilitate the posting of a single doctor to that facility, even though you have been in government for close to 20 years! Does that also require some special “big ideas?”
I’ve played my part in virtually all the 52 wards in Kwara Central, including my ancestral ward, Gambari. As at the time of writing this, I am not aware that there’s any request from the Gambari Ward Development Association or Gambari Ward Youth Development Association or any other relevant bodies for that matter before the board of the Foundation that has not been attended to within the limits of my personal hard-earned resources. But if there is any that has been channeled to you, I expect that you would take a cue from me by playing your part and support them like I did in Ubandawaki where you’re from, instead of passing the bulks as you have done in your letter. At least, Gambari is also part of the wards in Kwara Central that you seek to represent. So, take up the gauntlet and fix it!
Meanwhile, you forgot to thank me for the newly constructed multimillion Naira ultramodern motorized borehole in front of Ile Apo, your family house, which our foundation intervened on recently, after many unheeded pleas to you from your people. But that is on a lighter note.
I wish you a happy New Year.
Saliu Mustapha
Turaki of Ilorin Emirate
APC Kwara Central Senatorial District Candidate
