After several months, weeks of campaign, lobbying and horse-trading, candidates of the leading two major political parties in Nigeria, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for the November 16th gubernatorial election in Kogi State, have emerged.
Incumbent governor of the state, Yahaya Bello is seeking a re-election for a second term in office.
The Kogi governor has been heavily criticised over his style of leadership.
Political observers are of the view that his administration has failed to implement meaningful policies that would impact on the people or initiate infrastructural projects across the three Senatorial districts across the state.
His treatment of workers in the state leaves much to be desired, as civil servants are being owed salaries for several months.
His emergence, as the APC flag bearer, perhaps, did not come as a surprise to observers. This is because, before the primary, there were speculations that the governor had the backing of top hierarchy in the party and the presidency for a second term ticket.
After days of intrigues, and reports of alleged disqualification of some of his opponents, he emerged winner of the APC governorship primary in the state, polling 3,091 votes from 3,596 delegates who participated in the indirect primary.
10 other aspirants participated in the primary, while one of them, Hassan Bewa, a member of the House of Representatives walked out of the venue of the primary, alleging high level of manipulation.
In the last few days, after the primary election, several of the gubernatorial candidates have rejected the result of the primary; they claimed that the process was rigged in favour of the governor.
Some of the aspirants were reported to have defected to other political parties to realise their ambition, and observers say that there could be more intrigues on the APC gubernatorial primary in the days ahead.
Also, in the camp of the opposition PDP, the battle for the party’s gubernatorial ticket was perhaps expected to be fierce.
Days to the primary, all eyes were on Senator Dino Melaye who represents Kogi west in the upper legislative chamber of the National Assembly.
In the last four years since dumping the APC, a platform he won the Senatorial election in 2015, to join the PDP; he has been one of the fierce critics of the Buhari administration.
His ability to survive all the efforts to ‘pull him down’ perhaps, appears to have garnered him more public sympathy and support among Nigerians.
Political observers had predicted Melaye’s victory in the PDP primary; they said he had large grassroots support, enough finance, and so was the best candidate capable of matching the antics of the incumbent governor of the state.
However, the result of the primary turned out to be in the contrary, as relatively unknown, Musa Wada, emerged victorious, scoring 748 votes to clinch the party ticket.
Wada, who is a younger brother of the immediate past governor of the state, Idris Wada, was closely followed by Abubakar Mohammed Ibrahim, the son of a former governor, Ibrahim Idris (Ibro), who polled 710 votes.
The immediate past governor of the state, Idris Wada, came third with 345 votes while Senator Dino Melaye polled 70 votes to emerge fourth.
The PDP, has however, accused Bello and the APC of being behind the sporadic shooting that left one person killed during the exercise. The PDP had alleged that the decision of the ruling party to resort to “violence and bloodletting” cannot save the failed governor and his party during the forthcoming governorship election in the state.
In a statement by its spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan, the opposition party insisted that the people of Kogi State were firm in the irreversible resolve to use every means available in a democracy to confront and vanquish APC’s evil plots ahead of the election.
“It is clear to all that Governor Yahaya Bello has become chaotic in the face of his rejection by the people as well as the soaring popularity of the PDP in Kogi State, and has now resorted to violence in a failed desperate attempt to prevent our party from presenting a candidate for the election.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the PDP had a peaceful, decent, clean, clear, credible and transparent process in the conduct of our primary.
“Accredited delegates had voted and the balloting had been concluded in a very orderly manner before the vicious attack by the gunmen, who were shouting pro-Bello mantra and accompanied by known APC faces. Following the gunmen invasion of the venue of PDP primary election, Governor Bello had directed security operatives to get to the root of the matter,” the spokesman said.
But the governor in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Muhammed Onogwu, stated that the attack may not be unconnected with the usual do-or-die politics of some of the opposition aspirants whose desperation to win at all costs has led to so violence and crises in the state, including this one.”
Meanwhile, the emergence of Wada who hails from Kogi-east Senatorial district as the candidate of the PDP has thrown up hope in the opposition camp about the chances of the PDP in the election and Wada’s ability to defeat incumbent governor of the state in the November poll.
In an interview with BD Sunday, a Political analyst from the department of Political Science, Kogi State University, Ibrahim Bala, said his concern was not about who would win the governorship election, but the impartiality of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in conducting a free and fair poll, stressing that it was obvious that people of the state where tired of the Bello’s administration.
“Personally, I would be out of my mind to go and vote for Bello base on what we have seen in this state since he became governor in 2015; come and visit the state, there is no projects that he has executed.
“Security is at its worst in Kogi, nothing is working, and civic servants are not been paid; so in a free and fair governorship election how would Bello win?
“I am not saying he does not have his own support from his strong bases and remember there is incumbency power. But what I am saying is that if INEC remain impartial Kogi people would vote Bello out, mark my word”.
“Any governorship candidate the PDP present now would defeat Bello, they say he has the backing of the presidency and you know what that would mean,” Ibrahim said.
Also speaking, a political commentator in the state, Shola Bello, predicted that with the dismay performance of the Bello’s administration in the last four years, Wada would floor him in the election.
Bello said, he was confidence Wada would clear the votes in Kogi-east and Kogi-west to give him victory in the election, stressing that the PDP would equally get significant part of the votes in Kogi central where the Governor hails from.
He berated the administration for lacking purpose, stressing that the state had retarded since he assumed office.
According to him, Bello may not get 30 percent of the votes in a free and fair contest; we pray INEC stays neutral in the election. But if the Osun episode repeats itself that is where there would be problem.
The vote in Kogi east and Kogi central is enough to give Wada the victory; he would also get a sizeable number of the votes from Kogi central where Bello hails from.
“Giving the antecedent of Bello, there is no infrastructure that he has executed in the three Senatorial districts in the state, so how can he win?
“Even the ones he met on ground have deteriorated; the state is worse than he took over in 2015, and civil servants are not being paid salaries.
“It was when the primary election of his party was close that he hurriedly went to pay some months, even then he is still owes salaries. Even within the APC camp some people are not happy with his style of government,” he said.
Meanwhile, as INEC prepares for the November poll, the commission must be at alert and be prepared to deploy enough security personnel to all polling units.
Iniobong Iwok
