Political parties are built on a simple, non-negotiable premise: internal discipline. When a party conducts its primary elections, declares a standard-bearer, and submits that name to the electoral umpire, the debate is supposed to end. What follows must be total, uncompromising alignment behind the entire ticket.
Yet, in Kogi West, a troubling theater of the absurd is playing out as campaigns gain momentum for the 2027 general elections.
A coalition of political actors and state government appointees—people who owe their influence directly to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)—have embarked on a treacherous path of selective endorsement. They stage public rallies for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo, while deliberately, almost boastfully, omitting Senator Sunday Steve Karimi from their campaign pitch.
This deliberate strategy, colloquially dubbed “rice and beans” voting, encourages the electorate to split their ballots—voting for the APC at the presidential and gubernatorial levels while abandoning the party’s senatorial candidate.
It is political madness.
How does a political structure enthusiastically back a candidate’s primary victory, only to turn around and plot against him at the main event? The answer lies in the narrow, self-serving calculations of local political entrepreneurs who mistake short-term factional warfare for strategy.
These actors fail to grasp a basic law of electoral dynamics: you cannot teach voters to betray one part of your ticket without teaching them to question the whole.
Promoting split-ticket voting introduces confusion, degrades party loyalty, and creates an opening that opposition strategists will exploit with precision. When political appointees engineer internal sabotage, they do not just harm Senator Karimi; they systematically undermine the strength of Governor Ododo’s administration in Okunland and weaken the broader architecture of the ruling party.
Governor Ododo risks becoming the ultimate casualty of this needless antagonism. A governor is only as strong as the cohesion of his party base. Permitting political appointees to run rogue campaigns under the guise of loyalty sends a message of weakness and division.
Kogi APC has shown in other senatorial districts that it can wield the hammer against anti-party activities. The leadership in Lokoja must apply that same standard to Kogi West without hesitation. Those orchestrating this selective hostility must be reminded that political appointments are meant to build party unity, not fund internal sabotage.
If the APC in Kogi West does not reign in these rogue actors and enforce strict loyalty from top to bottom, it will discover too late that it has committed political harakiri.
– Ponle Adeniyi
ponleadeniyi457@gmail.com
