When the Abdulfatai Ahmed administration consumated a move by joining list of other states to adopt a new emblem probably to mark and strengthen a sense of identity for the people in line with the vision of the founding fathers of the state, it was greeted with a loud ovation from every intellectual mind. Everyone was much interested in what message the new logo passes.
Earlier before Kwara, we have states like Lagos, Cross River, Rivers, Osun, Ondo, Ogun, Ekiti, Bayelsa and even recently Kaduna state as forerunners. Since then, Kwara has maintained religiously the use of her own heritage, expending a huge of her resources to promote what at that time it conceived to be the state’s hallmark.
At any first glance, any nonnative requires no one to tell that the said logo encapsulates the glaring diversities of the state. The Arewa logo stands gallantly in middle of a well-plotted graphics connoting the presence of Northern Emirate in Ilorin and most part of Kwara North. The cowries comping the Kwara south Yoruba’s inherent, with the tractor showing our arable farm-land. The cow celebrates the rich Fulani/nomadic presence among others. What more befits a state than bringing out her beautiful possession in a country where every state strives to industrialize by woeing investors with her diversity.
However, in what seems to be a desperately inane move of an abecedarian administration, the governor blared the state is reverting back to the national coat of arm. Immediately, there were hue and cry which raged like those tropical storms for which the West Indies and the Americas are famous. But in-depth the outcry, the message is gradually sinking into the sub-conscious of many a ordinary Kwaran that there might be more to some of the step the new administration is taking than what it want people to believe.
What the governor’s handlers failed to riddle out while adjuring the newbie governor was giving a more appealing reason to why he considered a new to the noticeable “flaws” of the abadoned emblem. To a leader complaining the lean resources of the state, does the governor not consider the financial implications outrightly jettisoning it will portends.
Speaking from a bipartisan undertone voice, is the governor playing politics of bitterness or giving a blueprint to rebranded governance?
The argument for or against this development may be a bit silent now, but it does not by any means indicate that the matter is finally rested. For protagonists and those opposed to it, there is surely another day to fight.