Abdulrazaq: Lai can’t win election in his ward in Kwara — Lagos is his home

Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, governor of Kwara, says Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, has no political influence in his ward.

The minister and the governor have been at loggerheads in recent months, resulting in a division in Kwara APC.

In July, the information minister, during the inauguration of a new state secretariat in Ilorin, said the party entered “one chance” by supporting the candidacy of Abdulrazaq.

Mohammed said he raised a major part of the funds for the 2019 elections in the state, which the APC won by a landslide.

Reacting to the minister’s comment, the Kwara governor, in an interview with THISDAY, said Mohammed did not fund his campaign and that he planned the campaign himself with donations from friends.

The Kwara governor accused the minister of “hijacking” the donations made for his campaign in 2019, adding that the minister stayed in Abuja and did not know how the election went in Kwara.

“Everything that was donated, Lai Mohammed did not declare to the party, or to me. Some were direct donations to me,” he said.

“Some were sent to Kwara APC but there’s no governor, no minister. He was sitting there in Abuja, he did not know how we held the election.

“He did not know how we campaigned. He was in Abuja. Ask Minister Lai Mohammed, how many times he comes to Kwara? Our two ministers don’t come to Kwara. They are in Abuja. Both of them. Lai goes to Lagos. That’s his home.

“That’s where his son is a member of the Lagos state house of assembly. That’s where his family is. He has no house here. He doesn’t come here. As our minister, he doesn’t come home. Same with Gbemi Saraki. She doesn’t come. So it’s like we don’t have a minister.

“That’s why the pressure is on the governor. In other states, you have ministers relieving that pressure. Everything coming to the state, they stay in Abuja and hijack it. They are running from one ministry to the other to try and hijack things from Abuja. In terms of resources, they just took everything.”

The governor said the minister is only good with making “noise” on social media, adding that he cannot win an election in his ward.

Abdulrazaq boasted that his faction has all the members of the state house of assembly, except one who is in the minister’s camp.

He said: “They’re noisy in the media, not on ground. Lai cannot win an election in his ward. They’re good with social media noise. That’s all they do. But nobody’s asking how each member of the state assembly emerged. How did they manipulate their way to win their seats?

“There was no godfather, putting people in place, everybody struggled to emerge. We would network and work with each other. No godfather. Everybody struggled in their own way. Yes, I gave money, and they also sourced money for themselves.

“So everybody struggled to win this thing. But some people will sit down and say that it is their party. It is this or that, that I don’t have anybody. If I don’t have anybody, I have all the legislators with me. Is that not something? Let them tell me, they have people.

“How many legislators do they have both in the state and national assembly on their side? It’s just a whole lot of media hype. Lai came a few months ago to make noise that he sponsored the campaign, did this and that. He made a lot of noise and pushed it to NTA.”