A group, the Okun Core Progressives (OCP), has decried what it termed deliberate neglect of the Okun- Yoruba speaking part of Kogi State in the ministerial list submitted to the National Assembly by President Bola Tinubu.
On Wednesday, the group had urged President Tinubu to fill the ministerial slot of Kogi state with a nominee from the West Senatorial District of the state. It said the call was premised on the need for fairness, equity and justice in the geopolitical balancing of the state.
The second batch of the ministerial list submitted on Wednesday by the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, had the name of Shuaibu Audu, son of late Governor of the state, Abubakar Audu, from Kogi East as minister-designate for Kogi State.
Reacting to the development, OCP in a statement in Lokoja yesterday signed by the national president of the group, Chief Akande Michael, argued that the incumbent Governor of Kogi state, Alhaji Yahaya Bello and the candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) in the November governorship election in Kogi state, Ahmed Ododo are both from Central. Ododo’s running mate, Joel Salifu Oyibo is from the Eastern senatorial district, despite the fact that the Eastern senatorial district equally enjoyed the ministerial slot for the state during first four year tenure of immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari. The late Chief James Ocholi, SAN and Prof. Stephen Ocheni both from Kogi East served as Ministers. The appointment of Audu, from the very same Kogi East, means, has left Okun with nothing.
The OCP urged President Tinubu to fill the ministerial slot of Kogi state with a nominee from the West Senatorial District of the state, Okun axis in particular.
The group said in the interest of fairness, justice and equity, Kogi West deserved to produce the ministerial nominee from Kogi State.
They urged President Tinubu to consider the Okun axis of Kogi West for the job owing to the fact that the last minister from the state, Ramatu Tijjani, hails from the Lokoja/Kotonkarfe axis of the West senatorial district.
“We heard from the grapevine that even it was Governor Yahaya Bello that even nominated Audu. President Tinubu can not tell us he’s not abreast with what’s happening in Kogi state. Even if he was not going to make Hon James Faleke a minister for reason best known to him, we expected that he would have told him (Faleke) to nominate someone. Mr President is quite abreast of the alienation of Yoruba people in Kogi State in the scheme of things under Yahaya Bello’s two terms rule.
“This latest scorn by the Tinubu Presidency if not corrected will be a spite to the faces of his core loyalists from the Kogi Yoruba extraction, like Hon James Faleke, who served as Secretary, APC/PCC and his hardworking Chief of Staff in the PCC, Duro Meseko, among others”.
The OCP however congratulated Shuaibu Audu on his nomination and wished him a successful screening by the Senate and tenure as Minister.
Insisting that Okunland has been grossly underserved under the APC regime from 2015, regretted that under the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the ministerial slot for Kogi State was specifically allocated to Okunland to mitigate the political marginalisation of the people in the state.
“Abubakar Audu from Kogi East and Patrick Adaba from the Central were governor and deputy. Subsequently Ibrahim Idris and Philip Salawu from the East and West succeeded Audu and Adaba. Obasanjo ensured the appointments of David Jemibewon, Kola Jamodu, Eyitayo Lambo and Bayo Ojo, SAN, all from Okunland as ministers in his time”, the group recalled.
