Your Excellency,
Permit me, with a profound sense of reverence and national duty, to address this missive to your distinguished personage—not as a disenchanted voice from the political wilderness, but as a sentinel of truth bearing the burdens of a forgotten constituency. This letter is not a harangue, nor is it a vehicle of bitterness. Rather, it is a clarion call for redress, a passionate plea emanating from the heart of Kogi East—an axis of Nigeria that has remained unwavering in its commitment to the ideals of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the noble aspirations of your “Renewed Hope” agenda.
Kogi East, Mr. President, is not an electoral appendage that dances to the rhythm of transient populism. It is a crucible of progressive idealism—peopled by men and women of vision, discipline, and political fidelity. In the labyrinthine chessboard of the 2023 general elections, while many wavered or sat on the fence, our people voted for you with the unalloyed conviction of faith, not seduced by material inducement but compelled by belief. Like soldiers in a just war, they neither flinched nor faltered. And now, in the aftermath of that decisive battle, we ask: What has been our recompense?
The bitter pill we have been served is marginalisation dressed in official silence. Appointments flowing from the fountainhead of the Presidency have conspicuously bypassed the sons and daughters of Kogi East as though we are children of a lesser republic. Aside from a solitary board chairmanship in a tertiary institution and a sprinkling of inconsequential board positions, our representation in the executive calculus has been paltry, peripheral, and perfunctory. Kogi West has monopolised the lion’s share of strategic placements, while Kogi Central remains half-fed, and Kogi East, utterly famished. This is not federal character; it is federal caricature.
Sir, a leader must reward loyalty, not as an act of patronage, but as a principle of political justice. Democracy is not merely a competition of votes, but a covenant of trust. When those who bore the brunt of battle are not seated at the table of triumph, it sends a chilling message that loyalty is unprofitable and betrayal is incentivised. This, in the grand theatre of politics, is a dangerous precedent—one that corrodes the soul of national cohesion and renders the APC vulnerable to internal hemorrhage.
The people of Kogi East are not political mendicants begging for scraps. We are a repository of intellect, competence, and national service. Amongst us are technocrats who have served with distinction in national and international institutions, grassroots politicians who command the affection of the masses, and visionaries whose ideas can enrich the policy machinery of your administration. To ignore such a reservoir of human capital is to abandon oil while chasing vapour.
Mr. President, permit me to draw your attention to the perilous allure of mass defections into the APC in recent times. While on the surface, these decampments may glitter as political gold, they are often Trojan horses wrapped in strategic deception. Many of these defectors are fair-weather politicians, arriving not from conviction but from opportunism—motivated by legal entanglements, desperation for relevance, or hunger for federal patronage. History is replete with such figures, who defected not to build, but to infiltrate, exploit, and retreat. A house built on rented loyalty is one gust of wind away from collapse.
Let us be guided by historical antecedents. Political parties that abandon their ideological base in favour of expedient alliances soon find themselves like Samson—powerful in name, but blind and enslaved. If the APC becomes a haven for the disgruntled without safeguarding its foundational faithfuls, it risks becoming a ship overloaded with defectors and dangerously light on conviction.
Therefore, I appeal—nay, I implore—Your Excellency to interrogate the moral compass of your appointments thus far. Let there be a recalibration, a reintegration of the loyal and the overlooked. Let Kogi East be woven into the very fabric of your national vision, not merely as a decorative patch, but as an integral loom of governance. Political inclusion is not an act of charity; it is an imperative of statecraft.
In the Holy Scriptures, it is said, “He who is faithful in little will be faithful in much.” The people of Kogi East have been faithful—consistently and conspicuously so. Now, we seek not favors, but fairness. Not embellishments, but empowerment.
Let your presidency be remembered not just for economic rejuvenation and infrastructural rebirth, but for the politics of gratitude, the morality of inclusion, and the courage to correct the course.
We, the people of Kogi East, remain loyal—but loyalty untended is like a candle left in the rain. May our candle not be extinguished by the winds of neglect.
With deepest respect and unwavering belief in your leadership, I remain,
Yours in patriotism and justice,
Abubakar Rajab
APC Chieftain, Kogi State.
