Isah Ezekiel Benjamin is a former speaker of the Kwara State House of Assembly, and one of the founders of the new political group, Kwara Redemption Movement (KRM). In this interview, he spoke on the political movement, why many political figures who formed the ‘O to ge’ movement have fallen out with Governor Abdulrahaman Abdulrazaq of Kwara State, among other issues. INIOBONG IWOK brings the excerpts:
You are part of a new movement many are saying is political in nature and similar to ‘O to ge’. Are we to believe that the movement that swept the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) out of power is no more? What exactly is this Kwara Redemption Movement, KRM, about?
I don’t believe that ‘O to ge’ is still in place because after the birth of the government in 2019, by my own personal assessment, ‘O to ge’ went into oblivion. And therefore, we regarded it as being dead. That is why we came up with the Redemption Movement. Kwara needs to be redeemed. We have been having a series of governments since 1967. We have had the military; we have had the civilian government. But after a careful assessment of the developments in Kwara State, we decided that what we anticipated as development in the state, compared to other states, is nothing to write home about. It is not what we expected. Therefore, we thought of a new name to call our movement and we came up with Redemption.
But the problem of many movements like we see in ‘O to ge’ and which you have confirmed is that politicians are unable to speak with one voice. Won’t that be the same problem you will face with KRM?
You cannot expect everybody to be on the same page. There are some that will come at the early stages and will not agree with you. When you start a movement like this, it is not everybody that will want to agree with you. But gradually, by the time you keep the sensitisation on, people will come to believe in the movement. Therefore, I do not believe that everybody has to agree with me. But one thing I have been saying before now on behalf of Kwara North, this time around we need to sit back and choose who should go into the government house. In 2018, it was a rush. We never thought of who can govern the state. All that occupied us was how to end Bukola Saraki’s hold on us. We never thought of who would be the governor.
Going by your recall of what happened to that movement, are you filled with regrets?
To me, there is no regret in ‘O to ge;’ in life, it is always a learning process. That opportunity has given us another chance to plan and do better, so that we can now have someone who has what it takes. For instance, Akogun Iyiola and others, when we set out to get someone into the government house, it will be someone who is ideal, who wants good governance for the people. It is not a matter of not taking us into confidence. Let me tell you this. The Bible says that the labourer is worthy of his wages. You are working because you want benefits for what you are striving for. If someone says that it is because of benefits that some are not supporting this government, I somehow disagree with such arguments. This is because even if he is not the governor and has worked for someone, he will also be looking for benefits from the government he worked for. So it is logical. We are not even talking about personal benefits. What of the common people? What have they benefited from the leaders?
But the current government, according to many, has done so much for people and also improved the welfare of workers in the state?
Let me say that I was a speaker between 1999 and 2003. Within that period, as meager as the resources we were receiving then was, our government led by Late Mohammadu Alabi Lawal, came up with poverty alleviation programmes every month. We were giving N50, 000 to each beneficiary. For instance, in my local government, at least 10 people per ward benefitted from the programme. Meaning that every month 100 people get N50, 000. That is N5 million in each local government. Compare it now that they earn billions as allocations. The highest the state got before we left power was not even up to N1 billion. I recall in 2000, February, what came to this state was N346 million. And we used N256 million to pay salaries. How much did we have left? Yet we sustained governance. It is not everybody that will get contract. But were concerned that common people were not left, not catered for. What we are saying is that if there are villages, they must feel the presence of governance. With N50, 000 of that time, just imagine what it did in the lives of people. How much was a dollar then? Compared to now.
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So, can we say that KRM is geared towards 2027 election?
I cannot rule out that this movement is not geared towards 2027 election. It was the same way that ‘O to ge’ movement was geared towards election in 2019. So, the same thing is what we are going to do but for now to the best of my knowledge, we have just a movement. But I know that there are so many political parties represented here. I am in APC, Iyiola and others were in Social Democratic Party (SDP) and now back to APC; there are PDP members.
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