Dickson Okafor

Dr. Jerome Aduojo, served during former Governor Idris Wada’s administration as the caretaker chairman of Omala Local Government Area of Kogi State. He  believes that Kogi people are yearning for Wada’s return and has appealed to other governorship aspirants on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to back his (Wada) second term bid.  

 

You  disappeared from the political scene after PDP failed to retain power in Kogi State in 2016, now that another election is due on November, what are your expectations?

We have been trying to maintain our political structure by giving hope to our party supporters and we are looking forward to winning the governorship election in November by the grace of God.  Idris Wada  is in the race and I call on other aspirants on the platform of PDP to support him so that together we will chase Governor Yahaya Bello out of office.

What makes you think the people having voted against Wada in 2015, will re-elect him as their governor this time?    

The people have seen the difference between Wada and the present Governor Bello. They have compared the two and they have come to realise that Wada is far better than Bello in terms of delivering the dividends of democracy. Also, Wada has realised his mistakes one of which is the failure to carry the political class along in the state. As an upright man, he wanted things to be done properly, hence the reason for the delay in providing the good things he had in mind for the people. The greatest challenge that caused setback for his administration was lack of funds.

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Are you saying he won’t be thorough if re-elected?

That is not what I mean; all I’m saying is that while people welcomed his leadership style, the political class felt they were not properly consulted by Wada before carrying out certain policies and programmes. If re-elected, all hands must be on deck to rebuild Kogi and once again put smiles on the face of the people especially civil servants

Wada was rejected at the poll by the state workforce because civil servants were owed backlog of salaries and the situation has persisted, what is the assurance that if re-elected workers will get their full pay as at when due?

On assumption on January 20, 2012, he found out that Kogi was one of the few states that signed increment of minimum wage to N18, 000 by his predecessor, Ibrahim Idris into law. So, when he came on board, the total federal allocation that accrued to the state was N3.5billion and the total wage bill was N3.2billion. So, he was left with N300million and there was nothing he could do with such amount, hence he was real handicapped. The situation became more pathetic towards the end of his tenure in 2015 when the federal allocation dropped drastically due to reduction in the price of oil and what came to state was N1.5billion. So, Wada began to run the state on bank loan so that he could meet the wage of N3.2billion. Unfortunately, by October 2015 after the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari, the ruling party cautioned banks not to give facilities to the administration in Kogi and the banks stopped the roll over. Wada pleaded with the workers to bear with him because he could only pay 60 percent of salaries, but the workers refused. The question is, are the workers better now? The answer is no because they are worse off.

It is unfortunate that the same civil servants who could not endure for just two months and re-elect Wada are being owed close to ten months salary arrears. The bailout funds which Wada fought for was not released to him until his exit. Wada planned to pay N30 billion out of the N50 billion bailout that was due to the state into the workers accounts to cover the backlog of salaries, gratuities and pensions, but the money was not released. It was released to Governor Bello and till now we don’t know what Bello did with the money as civil servants are being owed backlog of salaries since 2016 when APC took over power in the state.

Don’t you think that conflicting interests of whom to fly the party’s flag in the November governorship poll may cost PDP victory?

One thing any contestant must have mind is the he/she must have access to billions of naira to be able to execute governorship election because whoever emerges as candidate from the primary, the onus lies on that person to execute the election. The party has no money to support the candidate through the electioneering process,that is why whoever that is going to emerge must be ready to foot all the bills down to the general elections. This is so because an election against a seating governor like Yahaya Bello is not a tea party. The person must be prepared mentally, financially and structure wise to be able to match an incumbent. So, I urge all the aspirants to drop their ambition and support Wada so that together we can chase Governor Bello and APC out of power in the state.