Voters collecting rice

By Horacle Tundè Ómó Atólagbé

We should never allow our fears or the expectations of others to set the frontiers of our destiny – Martin Heideggar

I stand. I do not despair or tremble and I have a belief that the vast majority of Kwarans will stand with this. I will state this truth briefly for posterity.
When we talk about a Democratic State in Nigeria today, there is nothing to write home about in Kwara State. A State that was created in 1967 and till today it is still crawling like a sick baby. Ours is a false State, a false democracy under the late Dr. Olusola Saraki and his ravenous son, Senator Bukola Saraki. By abracadabra, Saraki’s family has not allowed the State to walk, talk less of running far beyond human reasoning.

You may not believe this, sadly, we lost records of untimely death, courtesy of Saraki’s dynasty. Here in our State, death is not natural, but a gift from Saraki’s dynasty to the good people of Kwara State. Here, hunger is not natural, but a gift from Saraki’s dynasty to the people of Kwara State. Here, suffering is not natural, but a gift from Saraki’s kingdom. In Kwara State, “Babianla” is not natural, but an act of work because peoples’ lives had been turned to a sorry state, courtesy of Saraki’s kingdom.

“Tí oloko nla ba n doní, gbíngbín laa gbín” (When a man with a big phallus is making love to you, you have no option than to bear and endure the pains and torture. And keep praising him.)
Saraki’s family is powerful, so our Mother’s in the State praises them and as well raises up the ‘Derica of a rice given them at Íle-loke. These were some women who survived the untimely deaths during the struggle to collect just a ‘Derica of rice and a plate of Amala and Vegetable.’

Albert Camus wrote about Kwara State, and he compared our existence as a State to the life of Sisyphus who spent all his life rolling up hill without nothing to show. What is happening in Kwara State today is far above what made the Biblical Job to curse the day he was born. I shudder in horror to see our Mothers who brought us into Kwara State raising up their hands with the gifts of Ísonu all the way from Íle-loké. Some of them ate Amala and Vegetable without meat or ponmo at Íle-like and went into coma and to some of them, we wrote Inalilahi thereafter.

Truth must be told, whenever i come around the State, the anger in me grows and i am livid with rage!

“Orín wo ní ka kosí iku arugbo, biko base wípé,
“O to géé”? (What music do we sing to the death of a very old person, if not, ‘enough is enough’)

We cannot pretend to be ignorant like Buhari.
We cannot absolve ourselves from Saraki’s slavery because we are really oppressed and gagged.

Perhaps, (Emphasis mine) “O to géé MAY break the jinx and jazz of Saraki’s dynasty with another Saraki’s family, Gbemisola Saraki.
Perhaps, the Pharaonic role that has been playing from our infancy in the State; now to our adulthood within a constructed realm of lies and abundance of suffering will become history.
Perhaps, O to géé may change the paradigm.
Though the party never do well. No history of empathy, no history of achievement, no history of peoples ideology. They also don’t have history of a good leader, except Buhari with a farce and falsified integrity.

If the chorus from Omu-Aran my own town to Oke Onigbin, Igbesí, Edidi, Esie, Iludun, Agbamu, Ijumu, Oro, Offa, Ajase, Ilala, Omupo, Igbaja, Oke Ode, Ilota and down to Ilorin is now ‘O to géé’, let them play the music loud as Martin Luther Jr said, “There is a strength in number in fighting tyranny.”

We must change dramatically, quickly, before we have no option other than to die painfully a shamefully, while we are completely aware, unlike Buhari of our failure as a State to change this debilitating and oppressive tyranny from a dynasty that suffocates us on a daily basis. Our people have been totally impoverished and dying like sick paupers. We should never allow our fears or the expectation of others to set the frontiers of our destiny. Nothing must hold back except ourselves. We must deliver ourselves from this gnawing servitude. Great Martin Luther King Jr knew that even as minority, there is strength in number in fighting tyranny, holding hands and marching forward raising your voice, O to géé above the din of complacency move a mountain. I can go on and on, but O to géé.