OPINION: FCOE Afon: How Politics Cost Ilorin Federal Institution
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OPINION: FCOE Afon: How Politics Cost Ilorin Federal Institution
Sometimes, the cost of political decisions becomes clearer when another community eventually secures an opportunity that an earlier generation had already tried to establish elsewhere.
That is why emerging developments around the proposed Federal College of Education in Ilemona have revived questions about what happened to the Federal College of Education (Special), Afon. This opportunity could have become a major institutional asset to Kwara Central and the Ilorin Emirate.
Information reaching this author, which prompted this article, suggests that approval has now been granted for the establishment of a Federal College of Education in Ilemona, reportedly through efforts associated with the town’s paramount ruler, His Royal Highness, Colonel Nurudeen Alowonle Yusuf, who also serves as Aide-De-Camp (ADC) to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR. The emerging account is that an existing private institution is to be upgraded and adopted, with an exploration fund already released by TETFUND and a take-off grant reportedly earmarked for the project to follow in due course.
There is no reason to begrudge Ilemona over such a development. Every community deserves institutions that create jobs, expand human capital and stimulate its local economy. But it inevitably raises the question: what happened to FCOE Afon?
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A specific historical and developmental rationale drove the Afon proposal. Kwara Central representative in the 9th Senate, Senator Ibrahim Yahaya Oloriegbe, sponsored the legislation not simply to establish another school, but against the background of Kwara’s loss of important federal institutions following the creation of Kogi State in the 1990s. Institutions such as the Federal College of Education and the Federal College of Agriculture, once associated with the old Kwara, went to the new state.
The proposed Afon institution was therefore partly an attempt to restore federal institutional presence in the state and, importantly, in Kwara Central. Its designation as a Federal College of Education (Special) also gave it a distinctive purpose, particularly in specialised teacher education and related human-capital development.
The bill passed the Senate in April 2022. A public hearing followed, with community support, and there was subsequently a reported administrative breakthrough during the Buhari administration, when the then Chief of Staff, Prof. Ibrahim Agboola Gambari, issued a memorandum approving the establishment of the institution.
At that point, Afon had more than an aspiration. It had legislation, advocacy, community backing and a reported federal approval pathway. What it needed was sustained political follow-through. That is where the story becomes a question of leadership.
Oloriegbe eventually left the Senate, taking with him the legislator who had conceived and championed the project. His failure to return was also part of a wider political contest in Kwara in which Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq was a principal actor. Whatever arguments may be advanced about the political contest, its developmental consequence should not be ignored: the Emirate lost the continuity of the very legislative advocacy that had pushed Afon this far.
That should have made stronger intervention from the state government more necessary, not less.
A governor does not have to originate a federal project to recognise its value. Once an institution of this magnitude has been proposed for a community in the state, particularly one already backed by legislation and federal processes, the responsibility should be to help make it irreversible.
Afon could have been to Asa what the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital has become to Budo-Egba: a major institutional presence with consequences beyond its immediate mandate—employment, professional opportunities, commerce, infrastructure, human-capital development, visibility and a stronger connection between a rural community and the wider world.
For Asa, such an institution could have helped open up the area economically and socially, attracting people, businesses and investment while giving the community a permanent federal identity. That is the opportunity Kwara Central may have lost.
The issue, therefore, is not that Ilemona is getting a Federal College of Education. It is that an institution specifically proposed for Afon had already travelled a considerable distance but was not apparently pursued with the determination required to take it across the final line.
This is also why the political circumstances surrounding Oloriegbe’s exit cannot be completely divorced from the development question. Political competition is legitimate, and no Senate seat belongs permanently to any individual. But political succession should not mean developmental discontinuity.
If political calculations helped determine who represented Kwara Central, then the people are equally entitled to ask what those calculations produced for the district.
The question becomes particularly relevant as AbdulRazaq’s political future is discussed.
A Senate seat is not merely another platform for political prominence. It requires legislative competence, federal influence, constituency advocacy and, above all, the capacity to convert political access into sustainable development.
The Federal College of Education, Afon episode provides one useful test.
Here was an institution conceived for the Emirate, justified by its history and developmental needs, legislated for and reportedly approved at the federal level. What was missing was the sustained political push to turn the opportunity into a permanent reality.
If the Governor could not—or did not—deploy the considerable political influence of his office to secure such a potentially transformative institution for Ilorin Emirate, it is legitimate for voters to ask what distinguishes him as the stronger choice to represent that same district in the Senate.
This is not about denying Ilemona its gain, nor about reducing development to one project. It is about recognising that political leadership should ultimately be measured by what it leaves behind.
For Kwara Central, FCOE Afon represents more than an unfinished federal project. It represents an opportunity that had already been pursued, a historical need that had been identified, and a potential institutional anchor for Asa and the wider Emirate.
Its failure to materialise should therefore prompt a simple but important question:
When the opportunity was already within reach, who did enough to secure it—and who did not?
Abdulgafar Olayinka Temidire, an indigene of Asa LGA, writes from Lasoju
