Abdulrahman AbdulRazaq is the incumbent Governor of Kwara State. He was born on the 5th of February 1960, in Ilorin West Local Government as the son of Alh. A. G. F. AbdulRazaq SAN., the first northern lawyer in Nigeria. The Nigerian politician attended Capital School, Kaduna between 1966 and 1968; Bishop Smith Memorial School Ilorin between 1970 and 1971; and Government College Kaduna where he is said to have earned his West African School Certificate Examination in 1976 (WASC). Interestingly, there is no verifiable record or source of Abdulrazaq’s activities, education, or personal life between 1976 and 1991.
At the age of 31, AbdulRazaq founded an indigenous oil and gas trading company in 1991, NOPA Oil Services, later renamed First Fuels. First Fuels was originally registered in the Isle of Man, a tax-free offshore jurisdiction, and the company claims to be the first indigenous oil and gas company in Nigeria to export crude oil and petroleum products to the United States, Europe and Asia. He is said to have ventured into other sectors such as agriculture, construction, information technology, shipping and real estate. Furthermore, he is claimed to be an end-user certificates consultant to various multinational oil companies and governments including Libya, Yemen, Turkey, Niger, Chad, Ghana, Sudan and Afghanistan from his operational base in Abidjan Cote D’Ivoire. However, there is also no verifiable record or source of Abdulrazaq’s activities or career between 1976 and 1991.
As a businessman, Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq used and continues to use a different name, ABDUL RAHAMAN ABDUL. Likewise, his younger sister and former first lady of Kwara State, Aisha Abdulrazaq uses multiple different names and identities, as Ayisat Abdulrazaq Lawal, a former First Lady of Kwara State (1999-2003), and Aisha Razaq Lawal, as the third widow of a deceased former Kwara State Governor, Admiral Mohammed Alabi Lawal.
Before his election into office as Kwara State Governor, AbdulRazaq contested for the governorship office of Kwara State in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015 respectively under the Congress for Progressive Change political party. Unfortunately, he was defeated and over and again by Mohammed Alabi Lawal in 1999, by Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki in 2003 and 2007, and by Abdulfatah Ahmed in 2011 and 2015. Finally, he contested again under the ruling political party in Nigeria APC and emerged as the governor of Kwara State, after he successfully won the 2019 governorship election in the state.
During a press conference in 2019, AbdulRazaq accused his predecessor, Alhaji Abdul Fatah Ahmed, of selling no fewer than 110 properties belonging to the state government, including the residence of the Deputy Governor. He revealed that the Deputy Governor was at the time staying in a rented apartment and funding which were supposed to be allocated for education, vaccination and healthcare system were also plundered. He added that due to the shameless embezzlement of his predecessors, Kwara state was at the time blacklisted by the Universal Basic Education Commission due to debts accruing into almost half a billion naira. Ever since the governor has set to work undoing the chaos caused by the misappropriation of the former administration.
In March 2020, Oyinkansola Saraki, the younger sister of former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, condemned Governor Abdulrazaq for demolishing the family’s political home in the Ilorin area of the state. She went on to accuse him of witch-hunting her father Olusola Saraki and her brother, Bukola Saraki: thus, biting the hands that fed him and orchestrated his rise to governance.