While growing up as a kid with no glimmer of hope about what the future holds in stock, I knew something for sure: I am strong-willed and unapologetically loyal to shared principles and vision, which are guided solely by the principles of Ubuntu.
It was that same principle that pushed me into the all-powerful realm of the fourth estate, the pen professional. I joined the Journalism profession first as a soft-sell reporter, before finally settling for Investigative journalism more than a decade ago.
The last 14 years have seen me as a reporter, taking on headlong the fight against corruption and other sharp practices in the society, with special focus on government at all levels.
While the journey has come with hundreds of self denials, deprivation, physical and emotional attacks, among others, I must with the benefit of hindsight thank my stars and mother-nature for pushing me into the path of selflessness and being one of the non-state actors serving as the needed societal surgeon.
Since the return of Democracy to the Country in 1999, some of the major issues militating against the attainment of Kwara’s developmental potentials and aspirations are corruption, malfeasance, abuse of office, and prebendalism, among others.
Kwara has been unfortunate with the set of leaders it has selected to pilot its affairs at various levels, most have placed selfish, group and sectional interest over and above general interest and that’s why more than 2 decades after the return of democracy, Kwara is still crawling, while its contemporaries, and even those created decades after it, have all started the sprint game.
However, throughout my adult life, I’ve come across patriotic and competent Kwarans home and abroad all the time and my heart is gladdened. We have more than enough ingredients to make Kwara great. Our biggest problem is that we are a sheepfold without a shepherd. The day we manage to have the right shepherd at the helm across board, our development will be so accelerated, it would be hard to believe that it is the same Kwara. Yes, a new Kwara is possible.
After rigorous consultations starting from my family (immediate and extended), political and traditional leaders, Civil Society Organizations and other partners in nation building, I am convinced beyond reasonable doubt that I have landmark contributions in berthing a Kwara that truly works for all.
Share/Oke-Ode constituency with no fewer than 250 villages, all which are suffering from decades of governmental neglect. This constituency, suffers huge infrastructural deficit ranging from poor road network, lack of access to pipe borne water, and lack of access to quality healthcare among other necessities of life.
With the absence of all these, the constituency has over the years suffered massive rural-urban migration, thereby depriving the constituency and constituents opportunity of engaging in productive commercial activities, thus, shutting the door on possibility of economic growth and providing opportunities for both skilled and unskilled labour.
Having realized that the brainbox of democratic governance is the legislative arm, whose actions and inactions have direct impact on all other arms and tiers of government, I have decided to throw my hat into the ring to contest for a seat at the Kwara State House of Assembly, representing Share/Oke-Ode constituency of Ifelodun local government area of Kwara State, under the banner of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
In the next couple of days, I’ll be unveiling my manifesto christened ‘IWE IGBA OTUN’ a compendium which will contain my legislative agenda to be broadly structured into five thematic legs.
I therefore solicit your support and prayers.
Thanks and God bless.
Yours in Nation Building
Abdulrasheed Akogun