There is no doubt that the death of the governorship candidate of the APC in Kogi State, Prince Abubakar Audu has created a political and constitutional crisis that has thrown up new calculations and also changed the leadership direction in the confluence state. Apart from this, the development has also provided opportunity to gage the level
at which centrifugal forces are in operation in the state which has three major ethnic groups. The logjam has created a sharp division along ethnic line among the people of the 24 years old state.
The issue of marginalisation had buoyed the crusade for power shift and rotation among the ethnic groups in Kogi. At the height of the campaign in 1992, leaders of thought from Kogi reached a mutual agreement on a fair-sharing formula with the Eastern part of the state to produce the governor, Central the deputy governor, while the
Western part, the secretary to State Government as well as the Speaker of the House of Assembly.
The agreement appeared to have been thrown into the trash can, as the Igala have dominated the seat of political
power. The seeming marriage of inconvenience between the major ethnic groups has collapsed irretrievably. In 2003, some concerned stakeholders from the Central and West took the initiative on for power rotation. But the campaign could not go far because the political parties did not demonstrate the necessary enthusiasm and
synergy to partner with the initiators. Thus, the supposed hegemony of the Igala ethnic group has subsisted in the politics of Kogi, in spite of the fact that one zone had succeeded in entrenching the zoning principle.
The Igala in the Eastern senatorial district of the state has nine local government areas and are more in terms of population. The people also made use of their large number to have a voting population that is almost half of the entire registered voters across the state. The nine local government areas in the Eastern senatorial district of the
state have a total of 684, 845 registered voters, while the 12 local government areas in both the Central and Western senatorial districts of the state have 695, 133 registered voters. The development has however made the people of the East to have domination over others as this has shown in the power distribution in the last 24 years.
The state has elected governors on four occasions, and the four of them are Igala men. The first democratically elected governor was Audu in 1992; he was also reelected in 1999. In 2003, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris became the governor and in 2011, Capt Idris Wada was elected as governor.
Immediately the death of Audu became public knowledge, the division among the ethnic groups in the state started to manifest. The people of the West and Central believed that the development had made power shift achievable naturally, while those from the East said the wisest thing was to let the governorship remain in Igala land.
by Balogun Emmanuel Funsho,
from University Of Ilorin.
He can be reached on 07034444976 or via irule9ja@gmail.com
