SALIU MUSTAPHA’S REAL CAMPAIGN BILLBOARDS ARE THE PEOPLE HE HAS EMPOWERED

SALIU MUSTAPHA’S REAL CAMPAIGN BILLBOARDS ARE THE PEOPLE HE HAS EMPOWERED

Election seasons are usually announced by billboards. They appear at strategic junctions bearing attractive photographs, slogans and promises.

But billboards do not vote—and they cannot testify to performance.

That is why Senator Saliu Mustapha may be entering the Kwara Central contest with something more persuasive than posters: people whose lives have encountered his interventions.

In February 2025, his Alubarika Empowerment Programme reportedly reached more than 2,500 beneficiaries. The intervention included 20 tractors, 10,000 bags of fertiliser, 400 pumping machines, 30 rice-milling machines and 25 garri-processing machines.

For farmers, these are not campaign decorations. When properly deployed, they can expand cultivation, strengthen food production and create additional economic activity.

The programme also provided productive equipment for traders and artisans—including 500 grinding machines, 400 freezers, 200 generators, sewing machines, baking ovens, fish-smoking ovens and Aso-Oke weaving equipment.

Mustapha later partnered with SMEDAN to provide ₦100 million in grants to more than 300 small-business owners, craftsmen and artisans. Each beneficiary reportedly received between ₦100,000 and ₦500,000.

Education has also occupied an important place in his interventions. His university scholarship scheme reportedly expanded from ₦200 million for 200 students to ₦300 million for 300 academically promising but financially disadvantaged students across the four local government areas of Kwara Central.

This is where empowerment becomes politically consequential.

A sewing machine in the hands of a trained tailor can sustain a family. A tractor can serve several farmers. A business grant can protect jobs. And a scholarship can change the future of an entire household.

Beneficiaries are not obligated to surrender their political choices. Every citizen remains free to examine all candidates and vote according to conscience.

But as promises compete with performance, those beneficiaries become living witnesses to what Mustapha has already demonstrated the capacity to deliver.

His interventions also complement President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s emphasis on agricultural productivity, enterprise and economic self-reliance—reinforcing Mustapha’s support for the President through visible action at the constituency level.

Campaign posters will eventually be removed.

Political jingles will eventually stop playing.

But a tractor producing food can keep speaking.

A machine sustaining a business can keep speaking.

And a scholarship carrying a student towards graduation can keep speaking.

That may prove to be Saliu Mustapha’s greatest advantage in Kwara Central:

His strongest campaign billboards are not standing beside the road.

They are living and working among the people.

Osigwe Omo-Ikirodah is the Principal and CEO of Bush Radio Academy

SALIU MUSTAPHA’S REAL CAMPAIGN BILLBOARDS ARE THE PEOPLE HE HAS EMPOWERED