Dear Bolaji Abdullahi, Ideas Are Not Enough, by YUSUF Mubaraq Authority
Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, a former Minister of Youth and Sport, is the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Kwara Central senatorial election. He has based his campaign on what he called ‘big ideas’. Abdullahi is yet to show us what these big ideas are. For the most part, they have been lip service.
Rather than present in concrete terms what he intends to do differently at the National Assembly and how, Abdullahi spends most time boasting about being a former commissioner, former minister, this and that. As if those are the passport to making a good senator.
Dear Bolaji Abdullahi, beyond your big ideas rhetorics, you need to prove to Kwara Central constituents that you have a good personality. The impression many people have about you is that of arrogance, high-handedness, know-it-all. And you are yet to turn a new leaf. Pray, who feels comfortable with an overbearing, rude person?
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The manner in which you have run your campaign shows the vintage Bolaji Abdullahi: pompous, arrogant, haughty and condescending. You have rubbished your co-contestants as know-nothing, posing as the omniscient.
This was about the same way you carried yourself as a commissioner and a minister, assuming superiority everywhere, talking down to people. How do you make a good senator with all these attitudes? You are yet to change.
Again, away from your big ideas rhetorics, you need to convince the people of Kwara Central that your ideas would translate to impacts on their lives. You have had the opportunity to do so, but the outcomes are nothing to write home about.
You are part of the think-tank of a dynasty that destroyed basic education in Kwara State and ran almost everything aground until the people got fed up and thought they have had enough. Where were your big ideas then?
As minister, what were the impacts and projects you used your position and influence to bring home? How do you want to survive in the senate where you will have to use influence, charisma, contacts to get stakeholders buy-in on certain projects? You have had same influence, but the result is not there. People wants efforts they can see and relate with than the grammar you have been obsessed with speaking at the National Assembly.
Again, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, you have the burden to sufficiently prove that you are no longer the minion people have known you to be. You have had to resign about two appointments to please a master.
A senator must be a man with his own mind and not someone who can be manipulated here and there. You will be the representative of the people. How do you erase the public impression of being a Saraki sycophantic follower?
Beyond mouthing big ideas about, these are issues that count against you. The main being that you lack the public acceptability due to your past history that is still haunting you. Your personality and campaign hardly resonate with the average Ilorin person. You are yet to convince them on some pressing issues, some of which I have just raised. In the end, ideas alone are just not enough!
