If you want to know who the Kwara State governor is, you can find out here! Learn everything you might want to know about the Kwara State governor in Nigeria from this article. In addition to the story of his political career, we will tell you more about his early life and other career achievements.
Governor of Kwara State
Before we focus on the governor himself, let’s take a quick look at the history of his position. The first governor of Kwara State took his post in 1967, when the Kwara State was created out of the former Northern State.
Did you know?
Over the years, the state has seen 19 governors. However, only 6 of them could be considered executive governors. The rest were military governors that took the reins of the Kwara State local government during tumultuous times. Which is why it can be argued that the first actual governor took the post in 1979.
Today, Kwara State is governed by its sixth executive governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed. Find out more about him below.
Abdulfatah Ahmed’s life before politics
Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed was born on December 29, 1963 in Share, Kwara, Nigeria. He spent his early years (1973-1978) at the Katsina State’s Government College Funtua. Then he moved on to the Kwara State Polytechnic (then Kwara State College of Technology) in 1978-1980.
Abdulfatah also received a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry (1986) and a master’s degree in Business Administration (1992) at the University of Ilorin. He managed to combine his studies with working at the Federal College of Arts and Science in Sokoto. He started out as an Organic Chemistry lecturer, but was soon promoted to the Head of Department position (1986-1990).
To add to his Nigerian academic credentials, Abdulfatah has also graduated from the Manchester School of Business and Harvard’s JFK School of Government.
You might be thinking:
When are we going to get to his political career? Well, a few more facts about his life are worth mentioning before we move on to his appointment as a governor.
For a few years (1991-1993), Abdulfatah worked as the Assistant’s Manager at District Savings and Loans in Lagos. After that, he worked in the Credit and Marketing department of Guaranty Trust Bank until 1998. Then, he worked as a Senior Manager and later a Public Sector group head of the North West Region at the Societe Generale Bank Nigeria.
And now it is finally time to consider his political achievements.
Political career of Abdulfatah Ahmed
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His political career began with his appointment to the post of the Commissioner for Finance during the first term of his predecessor, Abubakar Bukola Saraki. From 2003 until 2006, Abdulfatah managed the resources of the state. For his excellent work, he received an excellent rating from the Fitch Rating International, which is an international rating agency.
But wait, there is more:
Not only was he the first State Government official to receive an excellent rating, but he also received it twice. After a successful run as a commissioner, Abdulfatah took a position at the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development.
Before running for the governor’s post, he was also a chairman of Kwara State’s Budget Formulation Committee, Millennium Development Goals Implementation Committee, Shonga Farms Holdings, and a board member of the Ilorin’s International Aviation College.
During the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) primaries, Abdulfatah outran his two closest competitors. In the elections for the governor’s post in the Kwara State government, he received nearly twice as many votes as his rival, Dele Belgore. In 2015, Abdulfatah Ahmed was re-elected for second term as governor. He currently represents the All Progressive Congress party.
What did he achieve?
Quite a lot, actually. When Abdulfatah took his position as governor, he wanted to turn Kwara State into an economic hub by playing to its advantages in terms of location, agriculture, entrepreneurship and innovation. He started working toward that goal as soon as he could.
He introduced the Kwara Micro Credit Intervention Scheme. The whole point of it is to help small and medium-sized entrepreneurs fund their businesses. What started as an idea grew to be a large fund that has over 50,000 beneficiaries.
Ahmed also heavily invested in education. He ordered the construction of an engineering complex for KWASU and subsidized the tuition at the university. In addition to that, he opened IVTEC, which stands for International Vocational Technical and Entrepreneurship Centre. It is located at Ajase Ipo in Irepodun LGA.
But that is not all:
Apart from education, he has also focused on medicine, housing facilities and infrastructural development. Under his governance, the state has flourished. More than 100,000 people are now enrolled in the health insurance program. His fund for infrastructural development allows the state not to be reliant on federal allocation. 1,000 housing units are currently being constructed for low-level workers.
For his great programmes and policies, Abdulfatah Ahmed has received numerous awards and recognitions. We would be here all day if we had to list them all. Among them are awards for his contribution to education, agriculture, sports and youth development. It is no wonder that he has been serving for two terms.
Abdulfatah Ahmed’s private life
Abdulfatah is not very talkative about his personal life. All we know is that he is married to Omolewa Ahmed and that the two have children together.
Interesting fact:
Abdulfatah himself is a devout Muslim, but his wife is a Christian. They met at District Savings and Loans and got married after a year of being together. Omolewa’s late mother was so angry with her daughter that she did not speak to her for more than five years! However, in the end, she came to accept her son-in-law.
If you want to follow the governor on his social media, you can find his links below.
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/AbdulfataAhmed
- Facebook: http://ift.tt/2f6H4xQ
- Instagram: http://ift.tt/2gKim6I
- Website: http://ift.tt/2f79hos
We hope you have learned something new about one of the brightest governors in Nigeria. We wish him a continuous and successful career. God bless him.
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ROSY CREST
Thursday 7 September 2017