By Musa Bakare
There is something profoundly curious about the sudden enthusiasm for seminars, summits and intellectual conferences on power rotation in Kogi State.
When Did Fairness, Equity and Justice Become a Talk-Shop?
Kogi West has been waiting for the governorship since the creation of Kogi State in 1991.
Kogi Central’s recent continuous tenure alone has reached twelve years, while Kogi East had governed for over sixteen years.
Yet, when the political conversation finally reaches the doorstep of Kogi West, suddenly a seminar is required.
Who needs a seminar to understand the mathematics of three? One district. Another district. And a third district that has never produced an elected governor.
This is not a seminar matter. It is equity. It is fairness. It is political inclusion. And it is the simple logic of a three-legged tripod.
A tripod cannot remain stable forever when two legs repeatedly carry the weight while the third is permanently denied the opportunity to stand.
There are questions the organisers of the proposed conversation must probe their consciences to answer.
Before 2015, when political alignments around Kogi’s governorship involved discussions between Kogi Central and Kogi West, where were the grand seminars?
Where were the conferences asking whether power should rotate?
Where were the intellectual summits examining whether Kogi Central or Kogi West was qualified to aspire to Lugard House? There were none.
Political understanding was political understanding. Negotiation was negotiation. Consensus was consensus.
Now that Kogi West’s turn has become the central question, we are suddenly being invited into a laboratory of political philosophy.
What exactly is this seminar expected to discover that the history of Kogi State has not already revealed?
Let nobody misunderstand the argument.
Kogi West have never had the opportunity to produce the governor.
That is the historical fact at the heart of the argument. It requires no talk-shop.
If Kogi State sincerely believes in equity among its three senatorial districts, then Kogi West has a legitimate basis for demanding consideration come 2027.
This is inclusion. This is rotation. This is equity, and it is godly.
Rotation among senatorial districts is not a constitutional requirement, but political life is not governed by constitutional text alone.
Political parties make agreements. Communities develop conventions. Political leaders negotiate understandings. Nations develop informal power-sharing arrangements to preserve stability and inclusion.
Indeed, the current Kogi debate itself demonstrates that political stakeholders regard rotation as a legitimate subject for negotiation.
A seminar has been announced specifically around Rotation: Kogi for Unity and Shared Prosperity. Sincere Kogi elders abd critical stakeholders have consistently called for renegotiating power transfer and rotation.
So the real question is not about a seminar. The question is: What political arrangement will produce fairness among Kogi’s three senatorial districts?
There is something almost paradoxical about asking the people who have waited longest to participate in a seminar about whether their waiting should finally end.
And if a son of Kogi West is expected to chair such a conversation, the symbolism deserves serious public scrutiny.
The issue is not the personality of the chairman. The issue is the principle.
Why should Kogi West preside over a debate about whether Kogi West should finally have its turn?
Our people do not need intellectual permission to ask for equity. They need political courage.
For emphasis, Kogi East has had governors. Kogi Central has had governors. Kogi West has not.
That is the historical record.
The debate should therefore be about how to create a peaceful, credible and democratic pathway toward equitable participation, not about inventing sophisticated arguments for why the imbalance should continue.
You can organise seminar. You can invite professors, traditional rulers, politicians, lawyers, clergy, technocrats and political analysts. You can produce communiqués. You can publish recommendations.
But when the lights go out and the microphones are switched off, one question will remain:
How many of Kogi’s three senatorial districts have produced governors? And how many have not?
No seminar can alter those facts. Dialogue is good. Consultation is good. Consensus is good. But dialogue should lead somewhere.
If every time one district’s turn approaches, the political class opens another round of consultations, another conference and another seminar, rotation eventually becomes meaningless.
A principle that must be renegotiated every time it is supposed to operate is not really a principle.
It is an excuse for perpetual postponement.
One day, the younger generation will ask a very simple question:
When it was Kogi West’s turn, what did our elders do?
Did they stand for fairness? Did they speak courageously? Did they defend the principle of equitable rotation?
Or did they allow the issue to disappear beneath mountains of seminars, communiqués and political calculations?
Leadership is sometimes the courage to say what everybody already knows but nobody wants to say.
Today, that truth is simple:
Kogi West deserves a fair opportunity to produce the next governor of Kogi State. Because a state that calls itself a tripod must eventually allow all three legs to stand.
Let nobody pretend that discussions about rotation and zoning are new. Let nobody act as though political actors have never reached understandings about where power should move.
And let nobody suddenly discover the philosophy of competence over rotation only when the argument for rotation begins to favour Kogi West.
Kogi West has competent sons and daughters. The question is whether they should finally be given the opportunity to compete for the highest office in the state within a framework that recognises historical equity.
The seminar we need is: How do we build a fair Kogi? How do we ensure that Kogi East, Kogi Central and Kogi West all have a fair and peaceful opportunity to lead?
That is the seminar Kogi needs. Not: Should Kogi West be allowed to aspire?
That is a conversation worth having. That is a conversation capable of healing old wounds. That is a conversation capable of building trust.
And that is a conversation that can unite Kogi rather than divide it.
Kogi belongs to all of us. And because it belongs to all of us, political opportunity should not become the permanent possession of any one section.
The people of Kogi West are not asking for charity. They are asking for fairness.
They are not demanding that others disappear. They are demanding that they be seen. They are not asking for a shortcut around democracy. They are asking that democracy’s promise of equal political participation should include them.
So let the seminars come. Let the conferences come. Let the papers be written. Let the speeches be delivered.
But after all the microphones have been switched off, let one undeniable historical fact remain standing:
Kogi West has never produced a governor of Kogi State.
And after years of waiting, the question is no longer whether Kogi West has a right to ask for its turn.
The question is whether Kogi State is prepared to make fairness, equity and inclusion meaningful.
KOGI WEST DOES NOT NEED A SEMINAR TO KNOW IT IS OUR TURN.
KOGI WEST NEEDS A FAIR OPPORTUNITY TO LEAD.
– Musa Asiru Bakare, a Political Analyst and Public Commentator, writes from Lokoja, Kogi State.
