Politics

By Abdulrasheed Akogun

There is a peculiar intimacy to political journalism that outsiders rarely glimpse.
It is not the manufactured camaraderie of press conferences, nor the transactional warmth of media handlers and their principals.

It is a quieter, slower relationship that begins with a notebook and a voice recorder, then deepens across years of shared journeys, whispered confidences, and the accumulated trust of battles fought and lost.

After nearly two decades in this trade, I have been privileged to call a handful of politicians more than sources. Three of them, by curious coincidence, all came to politics from other professions, and all set their sights on the governorship of Kwara State at different times.

The first was Dr. Lukman Olayiwola Mustapha foundly called LOM, a banker turned politician. A beautiful soul in a trade that rarely rewards gentleness.

The second was the late Dr. Mike Omotosho, whose passion and love for humanity knew no bounds. A man who carried destiny in his stride.

The third is the child of destiny himself and star of the moment, the Speaker of the Kwara State House of Assembly and now the governorship candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Rt. Hon Salihu Yakubu-Danladi.

My relationship with Dr. Omotosho and LOM, began in the newsroom. Over time, the lines blurred as they inevitably do in a state where politics and personal life are stitched tightly together.

I became, first, a media handler and fixer, then a strategist. It was a transformation I never planned, but one that felt natural. These were men I believed in, not merely men I covered.

Dr. Mike Omotosho was on the ballot as the Labour Party’s gubernatorial candidate in Kwara State in 2015. He was not a man built for the rough edges of Nigerian politics or rather, he was too good for them.

His politics was an extension of his philanthropy, a natural outgrowth of a temperament that saw human suffering and refused to look away.

When he spoke of Kwara, he spoke of its people as if they were his personal responsibility. That is a rare thing, and rarer still when the cameras are switched off.

Meanwhile, Dr. Lukman Mustapha, a relatively political greenhorn, yet one of the most innovatively popular aspirant attempted to fly the APC’s flag in 2019.

A banker by training, he brought to politics the discipline of the balance sheet and the patience of a man who understood that numbers, like voters, do not lie.

He is methodical, he is compassionate and he is one of the most decent men I have encountered in public life.

By the time the 2018 APC primaries began to unfold, I had traversed the length and breadth of Kwara State with LOM, I was convinced he would win the ticket and go on to win the general election.

My convictions were shared by my close friend and collaborator, Dr. Ibrahim Sheriff Gold, my twinnie, as I call him.

Together, we began the work that every serious campaign eventually reaches, finding a worthy Deputy.

Our thinking was simple, and perhaps naive. Any person worthy of being a Deputy governor should be capable of being a governor. Why settle for a spare tyre when you can have a second engine?

We were diehard believers that the Lagos model where the deputy governor supervises key ministries, could be replicated in Kwara, delivering more efficiency and better outcomes for the people.

The deputy, we argued, should not be an afterthought or a gesture, but a working partner in governance.

We searched for weeks. We wanted intellectual mobility. We wanted cosmopolitan polish. We wanted a man who could stand in for the principal without the room suddenly feeling lighter.

We settled on Dr. Mike Omotosho, one of the few who ticked every box of religion, region, network, clout and impact. He was from the right part of the state, he had the credibility, he had the reach.

In a political culture that often treats the deputy’s slot as a balancing act rather than a strategic choice, we believed we had found the answer.

I was tasked with the onerous job of bringing both men together, the banker and the philanthropist, the organiser and the idealist.

I called LOM first. I sounded him out about our proposal. He was immediately welcoming, positively disposed to the partnership. He did not hem and haw, he did not ask what it would ‘cost’ him. He simply listened, and then he said yes to the conversation.

Then I called Dr. Omotosho. His response remains one of the most memorable of my career. “Shoboi, I trust your judgement,” he said. “Although I’ve never met Mustapha, I’ve heard a lot of good things about him.”

There is no higher compliment in journalism than that kind of trust, and no heavier burden either. Within days, both men met. They gelled. They developed a friendship and a mutual respect that outlasted the plan itself.

It was a glimpse of what politics could be. Two capable men, from different parties and different worlds, agreeing that the state mattered more than their egos and designation.

The ticket, of course, was not to be. The plan died, and with it the possibility, at least for that cycle, of a Kwara where retired hands would no longer be handed the deputy’s seat as a reward rather than a responsibility. But the idea did not die. It merely waited.

That is why my joy knew no bounds when the APC leadership settled for Hon. Seun Ogunniyi, member representing Ojomu/Balogun at the State Assembly, as it’s Deputy governorship candidates.

Both Yakubu-Danladi and Ogunniyi are in their forties. Both are professionals who found themselves in politics, not politicians who acquired professions.
They both carry the kind of combined experience and exposure that arguably outstrips every other flag bearers and combination in the Kwara 2027 race.

To crown this combination, the two are widely acclaimed grassroots politicians. They do not need to be introduced to the ward chairmen or the market woman, they are known, they’ve always been around and they are trusted.

The joint ticket ticks every box, religious and regional balancing, experience, know-how, network, and demography. It is the sort of slate that makes political scientists reach for their notebooks and ordinary voters reach for their hopes.

There is a temptation, in journalism, to reduce politics to personalities. But the deeper story here is institutional. When a state begins to elevate young professionals to its highest offices, it is doing more than refreshing its leadership.

It is signalling that governance is a vocation, not a retirement benefit, like the major opposition , the PDP had attempted to do. Rather, It is admitting that the future must be represented in the present. It is, in its own quiet way, breaking a cycle.

When Yakubu-Danladi and Ogunniyi are sworn in (insha Allah) next year, May 29, they will be one of the best combinations ever to govern Kwara State.

I do not say that lightly. I say it as someone who has watched men of goodwill try and fail, and who has learned that the difference between a good ticket and a great one is not merely ideology or ethnicity or even experience. It is the willingness to treat the Deputy not as a spare tyre but as a partner.

Voting for this combination, then, goes beyond partisan obligation. It is a decision the electorate must make, not as APC members or opposition sympathisers, but as Kwarans who want to build on the foundation laid by the administration of Mallam Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq and take the state to the next level.

It is a decision about continuity with renewal, about experience with energy, about a state that has begun to find its footing and must now learn to run.

I think often of Dr. Omotosho, who left us too soon, and of that phone call in which he placed his trust in a journalist’s judgement. He never became deputy governor. But the idea he embodied, that competence and compassion that he can share a ticket did not vanish. It simply passed into other hands.

And sometimes, in this strange and beautiful profession of ours, that is enough. The seed is planted. The harvest belongs to the people.

Akogun is a Kwara born journalist.