Fellow Kogites, we are between the rock and the hard place. The state , country and the world has been victimized by a virus we now know as Coronavirus or COVID-19. This pandemic is now dancing on the tongues of everyone, the sophisticated and the unsophisticated.
Kogi State is on lockdown. Shutdown from Lokoja, state headquarter to its three senatorial zones; Kogi East, Central and West. Also, Federal government shutdown Lagos, Abuja and added Ogun state.
Confluence state is shutdown, shutdown that her young boys and girls can no longer go to school. Shutdown that she is in the valley of the shadows of death.
But this state has demonstrated not once not twice that it can survive calamities. Is it not true that we survived Ebola and still battling with lassa fever? Is it not true that we survived flood? Is it not true that we survived Fulani herdsmen attack? Is it not true that smallpox visited us? Is it not true that we are survivors?
We will survive again! If we work together, we will survive, because we are survivors.
We have our young men and women, our trade professionals, politician, traditional and religious leaders in the forefront, doing what they can and must in order to liberate the from the clutches of Corona. They will succeed. But we too have a duty to obey the dictates that are being issued to us that appear to compromise our liberties but are necessary for our better days for our personal good.
This innocent state now has a time to reflect, to ask ourselves fundamental questions. Those who have the honors and privilege of serving the continent as politicians must now ask; What do we do to our health sector now and for the future? Must we not in the coming days and future ensure that we allocate resources to our hospitals, allocate resources to our research scientists, allocate resources where resources will be used for the general good for this generation and generations yet to be known.
Fellow Kogites, we live in times when lies go round the world seven times before truth rises from our belts. These are times where we must exercise discretion.
We must give meaning to the words of James Russell Lowell when he said: “Truth forever on the scaffold. Wrong forever on the throne. But that scaffold seized the future and behind the dim unknown in the shadow lies God or standing God, watching over his own.”
We are not alone. But we must also do what we can and must.Confluence state must now pull herself by her bootstrap.
My dear state must use this opportunity to prepare herself because history has demonstrated not once not twice that it’s only those who buy the lottery tickets who win.
Kogi must now prepare herself to ensure that she can survive. We can do it, we must do it. It is our young men and women who are the backbones of this state.
So, I look forward to the day, wherever we are in Okene in Kogi central, in Idah in Kogi East and Kabba in Kogi West. The time is now for us to make a solemn vow that post-corona, we will do things differently; that post-corona, we will be more compassionate; that post-corona, we will only do that which is good and right. That post-corona, we will have new thinking, that post-corona we will have a new Kogi man and woman whose only claim to fame will be to do that thing which is good and right. We can and must do it for the sake of Mother Kogi!
– Ojimaojo Y. Abubakar
