Former Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, has called on Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, to live up to his responsibility as the state’s Chief Security Officer and take decisive action to curb the worsening insecurity in the state.
Saraki, in a statement issued on Saturday by his media office and signed by Yusuph Olaniyonu, criticised the governor over a recent video in which he allegedly made “reckless and defamatory” comments linking the former Senate President to the 2018 Offa robbery incident.
In what Saraki described as “another tragic episode in the growing wave of attacks across Kwara South and North,” bandits had killed 21 people in Oke Ode.
According to the statement, the governor’s attempt to compare the series of bandit attacks currently ravaging several local governments to the Offa robbery incident of seven years ago reflected “either insensitivity or a lack of capacity to appreciate and process issues.”
“It is laughable that a state governor whose people were massacred in Oke Ode waited five days before visiting the community,” the statement read.
“Instead of focusing on security, he found time to attend a project commissioned in another state while his own people were being slaughtered.”
Saraki accused AbdulRazaq of failing to convene regular security council meetings and urged him to expand the state’s Security Council to include first- and second-class traditional rulers for more effective community engagement in tackling insecurity.
The statement further noted that Saraki’s public comments had at least “forced the governor to visit Oke Ode” and drawn national attention to the growing wave of kidnappings and killings in Kwara State.
On the governor’s reference to the 2018 Offa robbery case, Saraki reiterated that the former Senate President had been cleared of any link to the incident by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution of the Federation in two separate reports dated June 22 and August 23, 2018.
“There was no evidence, directly or indirectly, linking Dr. Saraki to the Offa robbery. This was confirmed by the federal government’s own legal machinery despite their hostility toward him at the time,” Olaniyonu stated.
The statement also accused the governor of sponsoring a fresh civil case involving some purported families of Offa robbery victims, allegedly aimed at embarrassing Saraki. It cited a press conference by members of the Offa community under the “Offa Koya, Offa Kowosi” group, as well as public statements by some victims’ relatives, distancing themselves from the political exploitation of the tragedy.
Saraki urged Governor AbdulRazaq to stop politicising the Offa robbery and focus instead on restoring peace and stability in the state.
“If this slanderous statement is his way of diverting attention from his failure to secure the state, then he has failed,” the statement concluded.
The former Senate President maintained that his concern was not politics but the safety and well-being of the people, warning that the escalating violence across Kwara could define AbdulRazaq’s legacy if not urgently addressed.
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