Last Tuesday, Daily Sun sought opinion of the facts on ground from Spokesmen of the two top contestants in the Kogi State governorship race, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, the incumbent governor, candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC and Dr Musa Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
While Farouk Adejoh-Audu, Veteran Journalist, politician and former Chief Press Secretary to the pioneer Speaker of House of Representatives, Ghali Umar Na’Abba, who is now the Spokesman of the Musa/Ero Campaign Council said the victory of his boss is a done deal, Dr. Tom Ohikere, former Commissioner of Information under the Alhaji Ibrahim Idris administration and currently Secretary/Spokesman of the Media and Publicity Committee of the APC Governorship Campaign Council believes that the people of Kogi State are tired of the old order and would give Governor Yahaya Bello a second chance. Excerpts of the interviews:
Kenny Ashaka
I want a comparative analysis of the November 16 Kogi State Governorship poll. Take a look at the contenders and arrive at a conclusion as to who is likely to win the election, having regards to the permutations taking place in the polity. Of course, you know people like Yahaya Dantile and others are also in the race.
The truth of the matter is that the people you mentioned are hardly known. The only person I know is Natasha, the female SDP candidate. Apart from her, in all honesty, the race is just a straight one between Wada and Bello. The possibility of other people standing a chance is the unlikely event that, maybe, INEC disqualifies Bello and Wada. If that does not happen, I don’t see any other person coming close. But that said, the race so far is on our side. The responses of the people and the euphoria have actually been very encouraging and the reason is not far-fetched. In the last four years, there has been literarily no governance in Kogi State. The incumbent was not a contestant in the last election. He was not. The person who contested the election died and from political and judicial permutation, he came out and now became the governor. And in the last four years, the people of Kogi State have never had it so bad. Let’s start from human development. The Kogi State economy, whether we like it or not, rests squarely on government because it has not developed to the level that we have in Lagos, Anambra, Kano, Rivers and the other big states because of their high volume of commercial activities that can sustain the individuals after government. The Kogi economy therefore rests squarely on the shoulders of the government. And how does that happen? Most of the elite are civil servants, employed by government. Those who are not employed directly by government are employed indirectly by government either through contract patronage or other activities that are tied, somehow, to government. In the last four or five years of Bello’s coming into office, the screening of civil servants lasted four months. At the end of the four months, only about 27 percent of the original staff was cleared. Among those who were cleared, at a point, were owed 11 months salaries and right now, he said he has cleared the salaries. But the civil servants are contesting their salaries and if you put what they have computed together, they are still being owed about six month salaries. Now, the rest 73 percent are charged with one offence or the other. These 73 percent have not been paid since March or April 2016. So, when we say the man is owing about 44 months salaries, we are saying the greater majority of workers who have not been sacked or given letters of termination have not been paid. In another four months, they would have been owed for forty eight months which is four years. Now, without these people paid, how does the economy run because those who run shops, artisans, tailors, market women and men and others rely on the salaries from these people for the economy to run. The other thing that keeps the economy running is if you develop infrastructure and you give out contracts. When Abubakar Audu was there, he embarked on infrastructural projects like housing and so on; the same thing with Ibrahim Idris and Idris Wada. Now, in the last four years, this administration has not been known to embark on any meaningful project that has been completed. I will like to agree with them that they built a two-story building in Lokoja for the Kogi Internal Revenue. Then, they did one roundabout in Okene and two roads uncompleted. Luckily enough for me, one of the two roads that were rehabilitated went to my village because the Chief of Staff is from my village. Then you have the Ankpa Township road and the Ibaga-Okpo-Ogugu road. Apart from those two roads and the roundabout they built in Okene, you cannot point at anything in the road and transport sector. Nothing. And by our calculation, this government has accessed about N540 billion within this period. Ibrahim Idris never accessed more than N140 billion all through his stay. So also is Wada. With Abubakar Audu, the money they have accessed in the last 20 years in Kogi state put together did not go beyond what he has accessed in less than five years. Yet, there are no projects and he does not pay salaries. So, on what have these monies been spent?
Let me stop you at this juncture. The NUJ officials were in Kogi State and after being shown projects done by Alhaji Yahaya Bello, gave him pass mark in the area of infrastructural development. Are you saying they were wrong in their assessment?
Well, with all due respect to my mother union, the NUJ, I do not know the yardstick they used. Perhaps, if they had named the infrastructure, we would have known. But I do not know the yardstick they used.
As a politician you will realize that today elections in Nigeria are all about money, what people refer to as war chest. I also need to remind you that there is the incumbency factor and political structure. On what is Wada relying to make the kind of statements coming from you? Has Wada the money, structure and political might to match Yahaya Bello?
Yes, I know what you are talking about. Thank you very much. Well, I’ll like to start with structure. You see structure is more relevant when you are an intra-party candidate. Now, the moment you become a candidate, the party itself is a structure. What it means is that you must have operatives or people you rely on at every electoral layer from polling units to wards, local governments and state. In this case, the PDP is well entrenched. From 1999 to 2019 is 20 years. That is 20 years of democracy. Of these 20 years, PDP has ruled for 12 years. APC is just going to be eight years by the time they finish the second term. So PDP has structures in all the electoral layers already. If you talk about money, we cannot dare claim that we have money, definitely not in comparison with the incumbent. We have told you that he has accessed up to N540 billion and there is nothing to show for it and he has not paid salaries. So if he has all these monies to himself and we do not know where he is keeping them, we cannot stop him from using those monies to prosecute his election. So, yes he has advantage of money over us. He also has power of incumbency and being a member of the party in power. We have seen the APC National Chairman, APC National Leader, Tinubu and El-Rufai who have all come around to say they will deliver Bello. But one thing that has been unfortunate about all these people that have come here to brag is, what are the desires of the people? The people are not in the calculation of those who are bragging about delivering Bello. That is a very sad commentary on our democracy. None of them is saying Bello is popular; which means what they are saying is that whether the people like it or not, we are returning him as governor. That is unfortunate. But one thing we are also saying is that power of incumbency has been violated repeatedly, at least twice in Kogi State and the people are determined to set another record. Alhaji Abubakar Audu was the incumbent in 2003 when Alhaji Ibrahim Idris defeated him. Idris Wada was an incumbent in 2015 when late Abubakar Audu defeated him and Bello inherited the victory. So, the power of incumbency in Kogi State is neither here nor there. What we have in Kogi State today goes beyond money and power of incumbency. What we have in Kogi State now is a total resolve of the people to do away with an oppressor. As I talk to you, the number of people that have been killed under Bello, directly by his thugs, are more than the number of human beings that have died as a result of politics since the creation of the state. In the last election alone, 10 people died. This alone is very troubling to people. You are not paying salaries, people are in hunger and you now have an army of thugs, tormenting and killing people. That alone has fired the resolve of the people to reject Bello. People are ready to die now and save their children from Bello. The APC government has continued to look the other way while Bello runs a government of terror and mass murder. And the…
(Cuts in) Those are your words. But let me come in here. Even if you do not agree that Commissioners, Special Assistants and Advisers, including local government chairmen and other state officials spread across the state are some of the structures Bello have as an advantage over Wada, what if you are reminded that in elections of this nature, several factors come to play. Right now, the scenario in Kogi State presents a peculiar trait on account of the lack of power brokers in the state. It follows therefore that the candidate to beat has to be the most popular. But when you have people from the Abubakar Audu’s faction, Supporters of the former Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Usman Jibrin, Senator Echocho, the traditional rulers from Kogi State led by the Attah Igala, Kogi West Elders Forum, all backing Bello coupled with the fact that the crisis within the PDP in the state is yet to be resolved as some are still in court, how far do you think Wada can go?
Let me start from the court case. There were 36 people who contested the primary election in PDP. Out of that figure, 12 are working for Wada. One of them went to court and as I am talking to you, we are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that the matter is managed and the case withdrawn. We hope that will happen. But even if that doesn’t happen, I can assure you that the love of the people of Kogi State will not be affected by the internal bickering in our party if you call that a crisis. But I also want to assure you that the person who went to court has not asked for anything that is injurious to the party. He has only asked that he should be declared the candidate of the party. Now, you talked about Audu’s faction backing Bello. The person who came out to support Bello was James Faleke. The relationship between Faleke and Audu lasted for less than six months before Audu died. Faleke has been a member of the House of Representatives from Lagos State. Tinubu brought him to Kogi State politics and imposed him on Audu. Audu died and Faleke hoped to become governor. So Audu’s faction…I can give you their names, all of them are with us. All we are doing now is devoid of party, tribe, religion and the rest. What we have now is a movement to recover our state from the clutches of violence, poverty and hunger which is personified by Bello. People who ran election in APC could not get to the contest because Bello sat down with the crooked APC machinery and disqualified all of them. Every candidate of note was disqualified leaving some who came and raised four fingers as a sign of their support for Bello. Those people cannot deliver Bello. You talked about the traditional rulers which include the Attah of Igala. Well, by tradition I am precluded from criticizing or discussing the Attah who is the supreme traditional father of all Igala people. We have been watching the activities of His Royal Majesty with a little bit of concern; but we are willing to believe that His Royal Majesty is being compelled by some forms of pressure to do things that ordinarily are not in his character.