By Yusuf, M.A., PhD.
When Kogi State emerged from the old Kwara and Benue in 1991, its creation was marketed as the convergence of three peoples—Igala/Bassa, Ebira, and Okun—who would supposedly build a political community on a tripod of fairness, rotational access, and mutual respect. The architects of the state assumed that, over time, the three senatorial zones would evolve into co-producers of stability, forging a political order in which no district would feel permanently excluded from the centre of power. Thirty-three years later, that promise lies in ruins. Instead of becoming an example of rotational justice, Kogi has become its cautionary tale, showcasing the most consistent pattern of gubernatorial exclusion witnessed in any state within Nigeria’s Fourth Republic.
Across the entire lifespan of the state, the governorship has circulated exclusively between Kogi East and Kogi Central, with Kogi West completely fenced off from the executive seat. The numbers are not emotional—they are empirical, documented, and uncontroversial. Kogi East has produced three governors: Prince Abubakar Audu from Ofu, Ibrahim Idris from Omala, and Capt. Idris Wada from Dekina—together accounting for roughly nineteen years in power. Kogi Central has produced Yahaya Bello and Usman Ododo, both from Okene, whose combined tenure will amount to twelve unbroken years by 2027. Meanwhile, Kogi West—the only zone yet to produce a governor—has had no representation whatsoever. Not one year. Not one month. Not one day.
This structural imbalance becomes even more jarring when examined through the lens of comparative federalism. In no state of comparable diversity—whether Kaduna, Rivers, Plateau, Delta, Ogun, or Cross River—has any senatorial district been locked out of governorship rotation for three decades. The situation is unprecedented, even by Nigeria’s uneven standards of political accommodation. But it is the peculiar succession pattern of the last eight years that lays bare the depth of the imbalance. After completing his constitutionally allowed tenure of eight years, Yahaya Bello stood at a historic crossroads. He had the moral and political opportunity to restore equilibrium by returning power to the West—the district that had never held it since 1991. Instead, he took a route without precedent anywhere in the country: he redirected the governorship back to his own local government, Okene. The succession of an Okene governor by another Okene governor after sixteen cumulative years represents a political anomaly that has no analogue in Nigeria’s state-level democratic history.
Such intra-LGA succession raises profound questions about the political economy of dominance, elite reproduction, and the shrinking space for rotational justice. It suggests that the governorship has become tethered to a narrow elite network rather than the broader logic of shared representation that sustains multi-ethnic states. But democracy is not sustained by brute arithmetic alone. When an entire senatorial district is systematically excluded for more than three decades, the consequences do not remain confined to party structures. They spill over into civic psychology. Exclusion becomes structural, not sentimental; generational, not episodic.
The effects of long-term democratic exclusion are measurable. Political scientists have long warned that when rotation breaks for too long, it triggers a set of predictable behavioural patterns: apathy at the polls, erosion of trust in institutions, suspicion toward public policy, and withdrawal from civic cooperation. These are not abstract theories; they are lived realities. Across communities in Kogi West, one hears a growing sense of disillusionment—an unspoken but deepening belief that the state operates on a logic that does not include them. Every election cycle reinforces that belief. Every succession reinforces that narrative. And each reinforcement deposits another layer of political resentment that cannot simply be wished away.
That is why the present moment is so critical. For the first time in decades, a statewide consensus is forming around the need to correct the imbalance. Kogi West, long divided, has found a coherent voice through the Kogi Equity Alliance (KEA)—a coalition that has succeeded in harmonizing the demands of elders, clergy, youth blocs, women groups, civil society, and political stakeholders. Even more striking is the shift emerging in Kogi East, where influential scholars, traditional authorities, clergy, and public intellectuals are openly acknowledging that the West deserves its turn. This rare alignment extends into Kogi Central, where respected voices admit that a 12-year, intra-local government monopoly is neither defensible nor sustainable. In a state where consensus is not a common political currency, this convergence is significant. It reflects an understanding that prolonged exclusion anywhere breeds instability everywhere.
But the deeper danger lies in the temptation to normalize imbalance. Once actors begin to rationalize injustice, the political imagination shrinks, and society enters a dangerous zone where abnormality becomes routine. Yet Nigeria’s history teaches that diverse states do not hold together by accident; they hold through deliberate acts of fairness. This is why rotational justice has become a functional norm across the federation—from the north-south presidential rotation to state-level zoning in Enugu, Abia, Delta, Cross River, Ondo, and Kaduna. Rotational logic is not an act of charity. It is a stabilizing mechanism in multi-ethnic societies designed to prevent dominance, reduce suspicion, and strengthen the legitimacy of government.
Kogi cannot pretend to be exempt from this reality. The state is too diverse, too delicately configured, and too structurally complex to sustain a model in which one district remains permanently outside the circle of executive leadership. Leadership, not inertia, is what corrects historical imbalances. Institutions do not repair themselves; people do. Silence from those with authority—whether within the state, the ruling party, or the federal leadership—carries its own political consequences. The longer the system ignores the imbalance, the more entrenched and volatile the resentment becomes. Every structure that has excluded one-third of a state for thirty-three years requires intervention, not indifference.
Kogi stands today at a historical threshold. The evidence of exclusion is overwhelming. The consequences are visible. And the alignment for reform is stronger than at any point in the state’s history. The question that remains is whether the actors with the authority to intervene will do so with the foresight that justice demands. In a democracy, fairness is not a sign of weakness; it is a mark of wisdom. After thirty-three years, the path to stability begins with a simple truth: equity is not a favour to Kogi West—it is a democratic necessity for the survival of Kogi State.
– Yusuf, M.A., PhD is a lecturer, researcher, and public policy analyst, and a key strategist with the Kogi Equity Alliance (KEA). He writes on governance, equity, and democratic development.
Email: moooahmad@yahoo.com
Phone: +2348023856226
