True leadership unites. Kudos to Dr. @bukolasaraki for fostering unity and to all aspirants for putting Kwara first. Congratulations to Engr. Kale Kawu, our consensus candidate. United, Kwara PDP moves forward! #KwaraPDP#Unity#Leadership
The Kwara State Gov issued a press statement attacking Saraki’s reputation FIRST. He replied on social media. Now his reply is the crime? Since when did the right of reply become criminal defamation?
@bashir_ashura You can not claim to defend justice while the very people who administer it are protesting neglect. Pay magistrates what they are owed before turning the courts into a political tool.
Kwara magistrates declared indefinite strike some days ago over unpaid allowances, salary disparities and what they described as years of neglect. They alleged that a Grade Level 14 magistrate earns less than a registrar on the same grade and that furniture allowances had not been paid since the previous administration.
Yet the Kwara stage government is eager to use the courts against a political opponent while judicial officers within the same state are publicly protesting poor welfare and unpaid entitlements.
So in Kwara you can now face criminal charges for replying to a government that attacked you first? The gov released a statement against Saraki, he responded, and somehow Saraki is the one in court? This is a free speech case, not defamation. Call it what it is.
@Waspapping_ If responding to the government attracts criminal charges, then free speech is under threat. Democracy must protect the right to reply, not punish it. #Kwara
At a time when Kwara State should be mobilising every single available resource to protect lives and deliver the basic dividends of governance, the AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq administration has chosen to expend public energy prosecuting Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki.
What a shame.
@HonorableBayo While 176 Kwarans reportedly remain in the hands of kidnappers,the priority of the state government should be securing their safe return.Many citizens are asking why attention appears focused on political battles instead of addressing the insecurity affecting families across
@instablog9ja Instead of using state resources to drag people to court over personal arguments, the government should focus on real governance, infrastructure, and the welfare of Kwarans. Leave Saraki alone and do the work you were elected to do!
@ishaqsamaila5 The unfolding CBN revelations only strengthen what Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki consistently advocated as Senate President: transparency, fiscal discipline, and robust legislative oversight. Strong institutions exist to prevent costly mistakes, not to obstruct governance.
@Waspapping_ Time has a way of revealing who was right. Today's debt burden only reinforces that @bukolasaraki's caution was rooted in responsibility, not politics. He chose to protect the nation's future over short-term applause. That is the mark of true leadership.
So Saraki revealed he was basically punished for daring to scrutinise Buhari’s foreign loans as Senate President. Now look at our debt profile. The man was fighting for us and we didn’t even know.
One former Kwara State governor in Italy having conversations on African development. While @RealAARahman is busy weaponising courts against his predecessors.
@lanre4t@kwararetweets@ItsGeGeLe@bukolasaraki@RealAARahman When you have no facts to defend the government's record, you resort to attacking people. If Kwara is truly moving forward, show the measurable improvements instead of trading insults.
@Nancy_i_i Leadership is about shaping the future, and this message reflects the kind of strategic vision that can help Africa unlock its full potential. Thank you, Your Excellency, for leading this important conversation.
@bukolasaraki A timely message. Africa's future lies in stronger institutions and domestic revenue, not aid dependency. Kudos to Dr. @bukolasaraki for championing this vision.
Yesterday, it was a privilege to participate in the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung's Global Strategic Advisory Group meeting at Villa La Collina, Lake Como, for a very important dialogue at a time when the global order is undergoing one of its most profound transformations since the end of the Cold War.
The theme of the meeting — Global Partnerships Without U.S. Leadership — invited us to examine not merely the consequences of changing American foreign policy, but the deeper implications of a rapidly evolving international landscape.
We met at a genuinely historic inflection point in international development — a structural rupture — one that compels governments, multilateral institutions, development practitioners, and policymakers around the world to confront a question that has been deferred for too long: what should international development cooperation look like in the twenty-first century, and who should lead it?
The challenge is not simply how to fill the gap left by a retreating United States. The challenge is whether we can use this moment to build a development architecture that is more sustainable, more equitable, more strategic, and ultimately more effective than the one it replaces.
History teaches us that every major geopolitical shift creates both disruption and opportunity. The real question before us is not whether the United States is stepping back. The real question is whether Africa, Europe, and other emerging partners are prepared to step forward.
My central argument was simple: Africa must seize this moment not to replace one dependency with another, but to redefine development cooperation altogether.
This requires three fundamental transitions: moving from aid to genuine partnership; using development cooperation to strengthen institutions, governance, and democratic accountability; and investing in the next generation of political, economic, and technological leaders who will shape Africa's future.
And this moment — painful as it is — creates the political space to do something we should have done long ago: to build a genuinely different architecture.
Africa today holds more strategic leverage than at any point since independence. The geopolitical competition for African partnership — between China, Europe, the Gulf states, India, Turkey, and others — means that African nations, for the first time in generations, have real partner choice.
Genuine partnership must begin with ending raw material exports as our primary economic model. Africa must firmly say no to the automatic export of raw commodities without value addition.
When we export raw materials, we forfeit jobs, technology, brand development, and the higher-margin profits that come from processing. Manufacturing and value chains create far more employment than raw commodity extraction.
A genuine development partnership from Europe must support — not inhibit — Africa's industrialisation. Trade frameworks that open European markets to African raw materials while maintaining barriers to African manufactured goods are not partnership.
The second imperative is strengthening domestic resource mobilisation as the foundation of sovereignty. Tax-to-GDP ratios across Sub-Saharan Africa average approximately 15.6 per cent, compared to an OECD average of 34 per cent.
During my tenure as Senate President, we placed strong emphasis on fiscal oversight — introducing open budget hearings, confronting the issue of unremitted revenues held outside the treasury system, and working on petroleum sector governance reform. These were not easy fights. But they were necessary ones, because the alternative is permanent external dependency.
The third imperative is investing in institutional quality as the foundation of everything else. When institutions are weak, vision is short-circuited and dependency becomes entrenched.
@bukolasaraki@KASonline This is the kind of conversation Africa needs. As the global order evolves, Africa must pursue strategic partnerships built on mutual respect, trade, innovation, and shared prosperity, not charity. Wishing Dr. Saraki and the KAS team fruitful deliberations at Villa La Collina.
I arrived in Italy yesterday for this year’s Global Strategic Advisory Group Meeting of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung @KASonline, at Villa La Collina on Lake Como.
Over the next three days, I will be here with leaders, policymakers, and strategic thinkers from across the world to engage in substantive deliberations on the meeting’s central theme: “Big Daddy Gone? Global Partnerships Without U.S. Leadership.”