That Audu has a case to answer with the EFCC is the only ‘achievement’ PDP has been able to present to the people of Kogi state in the over 12 years of their reign is quite disturbing. It rents validity to the assertions by the majority of enlightened Kogi indigenes that governance has lost its value in our beloved state.
The provision of the “good life” which is the essence of governance is a foregone concept in Kogi if we are to go by the precedents being set by Governors Ibrahim Idris and Capt. Wada.
I guess it has become expedient to remind us of what people elected as state governors are meant to provide for their people: Better schools, better roads, clean water, hospitals and a functional healthcare system, new industries, job creation, opening up of rural areas through electrification and provision of basic social amenities. These will in no small measure empower its indigenes and place them on an equal footing with their peers from other states. There is no telling what an educated youth will achieve given the right circumstances.
Without mincing words these are the things Prince Abubakar Audu set out to do in Kogi state. Many would want to dispute obvious facts or discredit the pragmatic leader but it isn’t strange. Success is like a fart, it only bothers people when its not their own.
Politicians on the opposing side for want of ideas and for the obvious failure staring them in the face tend towards mud slinging as their strategy rather than running an issues based campaign. They feed off the obvious dysfunction inherent in both the EFCC and our judicial system. With the eonian dimension Audu’s case has taken, one is tempted to believe that there is an air of conspiracy hovering around it. No serious prosecutor allows a case to linger this long lest the case has no merit.
Kogi state was touted to be among the fast growing states between 1999 – 2003. The milestones reached by Prince Audu are icebergs compared to the mediocre molehills or if you like, near-nothing attempts of both the Ibro and Wada 12 year tenures put together.
The Paparanda Square is still what it was since Audu left, if anything, the structure is fast decaying. Lokoja township roads are ridden with potholes. No solution till date on the yearly fatal floods caused by the Niger river overflowing it’s banks. Confluence Beach Hotel is now a cesspit for spyrogira and reptiles. Rather than relocate the Lokoja New Market to a virgin area that will lead to the expansion of Lokoja Metropolis, a below par clamped up, congested non-viable ‘ultra modern’ market was built to waste right by the busy highway connecting eastern and northern Nigeria. Kogi state as a whole has been in constant retrogression or at best, stagnant continuity.
What the current government’s image launderers would have us believe is that Wada is a silent achiever. That is hard to believe. I dare to say any achievement that does not have any sort of impact, either directly or indirectly on the lives of the populace is only a charade. Achievements are meant to be visible, they should speak for themselves.
Not to give credence to the pettiness of the PDP, it is only necessary that one points out another below par argument being put forward by the desperate PDP campaign strategists and those who make a living out of spreading kitchen gossips in a period of serious political campaigns. They will say Audu is arrogant and one begins to wonder, if arrogance will establish a University just by my backyard so I will not have to beg for admission in other states, If arrogance will create an entirely new route from Lokoja to Ajaokuta so my trip to the village will be twice shorter, if arrogance will build schools and hospitals, radio and TV stations, tourist attractions, pay me bursary allowance when I was in school, if arrogance will give me the opportunity and a platform to get a degree and have a go at life then let’s double that arrogance because it can only do more good.
Come November 21st, we will be going to the polls to elect the leader we want to move our state forward. All we have been hearing from Governor Wada are promises, but talk is cheap. You can not give what you don’t have. Man by nature can only be understood by his antecedents. I put before you a man who has done awesomely well as a banker, as a commissioner in old Benue state and as a previous governor of Kogi state. He delivered on his campaign promises. It is said that he who spits in the sky, spits in his own face. If Kogi continues to deteriorate because we made the wrong choice, then it will be said that we spat in our faces ourselves. Let us embrace change. Positive change. Let us vote for the Prince of the Niger, the Adoja Attah, the one who has proved himself to be a progressive. VOTE PRINCE ABUBAKAR AUDU FOR GOVERNOR OF KOGI STATE.
