AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq: Plotting Creative Dots
AA, as he is fondly called by very close associates, is thinking of legacy. This very influential Governor of Kwara State who also doubles as the Chairman of the Governors Forum, in his second term, has mapped out a clear road map that would move his state from being just a semiagrarian cum civil service state to a major oasis of socio-economic development, leveraging heavily on a developmental tripod – technology, entertainment and industries. For him, the vision has always been to drive developmental traffic towards the state in a bid to ramp up economic activities which will now impact jobs, infrastructure, and youth engagement in the first instance, and then generally ramp up the basic standard of living while gently reducing the burden on the scarce resources of the state by opening private sector-led revenue-generating initiatives. To achieve these, his administration has embarked on very strategic projects that would serve as trigger projects for the anticipated economic flows. By this, he has plotted a very aggressive road map that has as pinpoints – a massive movie studio named the Sugar Factory, a huge tech hub which has been described as the biggest of its kind in the West African subregion, a modern high
tech animation studio and finally a massive garment factory just away from the airport. The idea, according to him, is to leverage the deep fountain of youthful talent that can be pulled from the tertiary institutions in the state and around to drive talent toward these projects, thereby creating critical opportunities in these areas which will now jump-start a massive economic renaissance in the state. To timestamp his seriousness, he is building a world-class Conference Centre complete with three massive conference halls, and a hotel with over 200 rooms within the same complex. According to him, this will give Abuja a run for its money in that space. Already traffic into the state has witnessed a major lift with the airlines recording more flow, thereby leading to an increase in scheduled flights and expansion of fleets, making AA’s dream of turning Kwara into a major economic hub almost a reality. He really does not need our prayers as from what I have gleaned, all the projects have reached over 90% completion and as earlier mentioned with human traffic, his vision has started emerging into the phase of reality. Na only one massive restaurant that will serve afang is what is left to attract tourists from Spain. That’s all. Well done sir.