DEMOCRACY KWARA WAY By Iyiola Akogun Oyedepo

There is nothing inspiring about Local Government administration and elections in Kwara State. Everything is about fraud and impunity in the destruction of our values. When you think people in political office have exhausted all their tricks, they invent new ones. Perhaps they do not know the meaning of democracy as they were never socialized into it. Their standard behavior is this ceaseless violation of democratic principles.

Six years running and government at the local level is run from the state. Where local councils were not governed by civil servants, they are run by the appointees of the governor. Whoever is in charge of Kwara Councils since 2019 is the man Friday of the Governor of Kwara.

On assumption of office, the then existing elected council was illegally dissolved. The then KWASIEC was dissolved and the stage was well to conduct council elections in September, 2024. I never thought there could ever be a free, fair and transparent primary in APC Kwara under the watch of our “leader”. And I told people that if the primary was credible, I would be disappointed. I was talking from the benefits of experience, hindsight and antecedents.

When the Party told us to go for direct primaries, I thought the leopard had finally changed its skin. But I was wrong. The primary election was conducted on Tuesday 2nd July 2024 and the result came out on Monday 8th of July-seven days after the conduct of the election! The result came without the figures scored by contestants. This really is democracy, Kwara special brand. The precedent of this was the gubernatorial direct primary of 2018. The primary produced the winner but no figure for others.

A cursory look at the candidates approved by the leader who is a one man democracy, are those that will be useful not to the people of various local government areas