I am writing this with trembling hands and a heavy heart. I am from Offa, and today, I speak not just for myself but for every mother who still wakes up screaming her child’s name, for every widow who sets the table for a husband who will never return, for every orphan who experiences “father” only on a gravestone.
In 2018, our beloved Offa bled. Armed robbers stormed five banks in our peaceful town. They didn’t just steal money. They stole our peace, and our joy. Over 30 souls perished that dark afternoon, including nine gallant police officers who stood between evil and our community. Death showed no mercy.
I remember the wailing that filled our streets. Families rolling in the dust, the strong reduced to pieces. Children orphaned, wives widowed, lives shattered, dreams shuttered. The blood of the innocent stained our roads, and gunfire echoed in Owode. We buried our loved ones with tears that could fill the Ọ̀yun River. We mourned. We prayed. We rebuilt what was shattered.
But even before the tears dried, the vultures circled. Within weeks of the massacre, as we mourned, politicians began their bizarre dance. It was a pre-election year, and suddenly our tragedy became a campaign tool. Former Senate President Bukola Saraki and his successor as Governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed, were dragged through the mud in the run-up to the 2019 elections. Our grief became political ammunition.
We’ve been here before.
Then, as investigations proceeded, as the Director of Public Prosecutions examined the evidence not once but twice, the narrative collapsed. Saraki and Ahmed were cleared. The actual perpetrators were identified, prosecuted, and in September 2024, five were sentenced to death. The Court of Appeal upheld those convictions in January 2026. We exhaled. Justice had been served.
But here we are in April 2026, eight years later, and the cycle repeats itself. Fresh charges emerge like a bad dream. Against Bukola Saraki and Abdulfatah Ahmed. The same allegations. The same accusations.
Eight. Years. Later.
Governor Abdulrasak’s government resurrects the same case with the same playbook. In 2018, our pain was weaponized for the 2019 elections. Now in 2026, with another political season on the horizon, you’re doing it again.
If there was evidence solid enough to stand on, why wait until now? Why, after the DPP cleared both men twice? Why, after the courts punished those who actually committed the heinous acts? Why does our suffering only matter when there’s political capital to be gained?
This is not justice. This is a pattern. And I am tired. We are all tired.
While Abdulrasak’s government chases political shadows, what is happening to Kwara today? Bandits terrorize our communities daily. Hundreds are held captive in forests, families crying themselves to sleep, begging for rescue that never comes. Security and welfare, the primary markers of good governance, are no longer priorities.
Yet our government finds time to resurrect a flimsy case from 2018? To repeat the same political playbook from 2019? While kidnappers collect ransoms? While our youths roam the streets jobless and hopeless?
Governor Abdulrasak, is this what leadership looks like? Recycling old accusations instead of addressing today’s crises? Using the same trauma exploited in 2018 for your political advantage in 2026?
As a proud Offa son, watching my hometown’s deepest tragedy being exploited again breaks me. Our pain is not your campaign strategy. Our grief is not your talking point. The mothers who lost their sons deserve better. The children who lost their fathers deserve leaders who will secure their future, not politicians who exploit their past every election season.
If there is genuine new evidence, present it transparently. But we know there isn’t. Same accusations. Same timing. Same political calculation. Different government, same playbook.
While politicians settle scores and recycle old cases, who is fighting the bandits? Who is rescuing the kidnapped? Who is creating jobs? These are the questions that should keep our leaders awake, not how to resurrect a politically convenient case from eight years ago.
Let Offa’s dead rest in peace. Stop using our tragedy as your political ladder every election cycle. Stop dishonoring their memory with accusations timed conveniently with political seasons.
We want healing, not division. Security, not gaslighting. A future, not endless political games played on the graves of our loved ones. Solutions to today’s problems, not recycled accusations from yesterday’s politics.
Governor Abdulrasak, you have a choice. Break this cycle of exploitation. Focus on the real issues troubling Kwara today. Or be remembered as the man who followed the same tired playbook, who used Offa’s tragedy for political gain just like those before you in 2018.
History is watching. Offa is watching. And we will remember.
Enough is enough.
