The Gameplan Against Senator Saliu Mustapha

There is a saying in Nupe-land that when you see two men walking down the road shoulder to shoulder, talking and laughing, don’t be too quick to assume that friendship brought them together. Sometimes, it is only a common enemy that made them walk in the same direction.

This seems to have been the case with Senator Saliu Mustapha and the Kwara State Governor during the last general elections. The way things are unfolding now, it is becoming clear that what we all thought was a political alliance was, in fact, nothing more than a marriage of convenience. The kind that ends as soon as the dowry, sorry, votes, has been collected.

From the way the story is being whispered in Ilorin and beyond, it appears there is a well-coordinated plan afoot; a deliberate, step-by-step campaign to clip the wings of the Senator representing Kwara Central. Not just clip them, but shred them entirely and bury the feathers. And the lone objective is to prevent him from building any political legacy, and deny him anything that can be remembered tomorrow as his achievement.

The handwriting was always on the wall. But as we say, some people are so busy looking at the stars that they miss the potholes under their feet. Perhaps Senator Mustapha and his team were too optimistic, too trusting, or too naive to notice the silent knives being sharpened behind the curtains.

Those close enough to the Governor’s inner caucus are saying what has long been suspected, that the Senator’s popularity has been a source of serious headache for the Government House. His goodwill among the talakawa, traditional leaders, clerics, and young people has become a political nuisance to the establishment. It was fine when his popularity was helping them win elections. But now that the votes have been counted and the seats secured, he is suddenly too big for comfort.

During the campaigns, the Governor’s camp badly needed a facelift. Governor AbdulRahman’s public goodwill had gone into recession, just like the economy, and they needed the Turaki’s crowd, his clean image, his roots in Ilorin Emirate, and his access to people and institution who wouldn’t touch the state government with a long stick. So they tolerated him, just for that brief political season.

But make no mistake, they never wanted him to win the senatorial ticket. He was only a means to an end, not part of the end itself. Now that the mission has been accomplished, they have moved to phase two: containment.

Since the election, the Senator has faced everything from political cold shoulders to bureaucratic roadblocks. Federal projects tied to his name are quietly frustrated, his loyalists have been harassed and suspended from the party and party executives have been barred from openly identifying with him. All these are no accidents, neither are they coincidences. They’re coordinated.

Already, appointed aides of the Governor have been hopping from one radio station to another, bad-mouthing the Senator with the casual confidence of those assured of institutional backing. In addition, media boys, both the known and the anonymous, are being quietly recruited to kickstart a whispering campaign about “poor delivery.”

They are expected to ask questions no one is asking, plant doubts where none exists, and create smoke so that everyone assumes there must be fire. All of these are not isolated acts, they are part of the gameplan.

Had the Senator been allowed to continue at the pace and style he adopted during the election, it is safe to say that no politician in Kwara would be able to match his popularity by 2027. That is the real fear. That is the real game – to remove the Turaki’s legs before he learns to fly.

Some are now predicting that the fight will soon abate, that reason will prevail, and that political elders will intervene. But such optimism belongs to people who have not watched enough Nigerian politics. This is not a disagreement over who sat on whose chair at a party meeting. This is a long-term political vendetta, and it is being prosecuted with the patience of a hunter who can sit in one spot from dawn till dusk just to catch a bushmeat.

Senator Saliu Mustapha must now decide whether he wants to keep playing the gentleman while political arrows fly over his head, or whether it is time to put on his armor. This is not just about constituency projects anymore. It is about survival, fierce political survival.

As we say in Nigeria, if they are not fighting you because of what you have, then they are fighting you because of what you can become. For now, only God and Turaki himself can save him from what is clearly becoming a war of political extermination. And this war, to borrow a military term, has no exit strategy.

Comrade Babawuchiko A. Mohammad writes from Edu local government

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