By Onoja Johnson Baba
Son of late Prince Abubakar Audu and former governorship aspirant under the platform of All the Progressive Congress (APC), Prince Mustapha Mona Audu has given his party a 24-hours ultimatum to unveil its plans for the people of Kogi State and how they intend to govern differently.
Mona who has maintained silence for some time made this known in a five minutes video broadcast he released on Tuesday.
In the video broadcast, Audu apologized to his supporters on his long silence and promised to get involved and work with all Kogites to make sure their votes are defended and accounted for.
The APC chieftain stated that he has put plans in place to monitor the forthcoming election, especially in violence-prone areas.
Full speech transcript bellow;
“Good morning ladies and gentlemen, good morning my fellow Kogites, glad to see you today, hope you had a wonderful holiday.
“First of all, I would like to apologize for the silence throughout the whole electioneering process. The election is around the corner and I haven’t said anything to a lot of my followers simply because I have been evaluating the situation since the unfortunate incident of the primaries in my party and what happened before the primaries. I have been waiting for the party to make adjustment, to make changes.
“I am a man of honor. I am a man of my party and I believe that my party should be given a fair chance for changing its ways. But unfortunately, in all these time, we have not seen anything different in their actions, in the way they behave and in the way that Kogi state has been moving forward. I remember the last election, we stayed with late great Prince Abubakar Audu and we were involved in the electioneering process every day. We were in the different local governments in the last 21 days before the election. Unfortunately, this time around is being completely different scenario, things have not been the way they should be, and quite frankly I am not happy, I am not impressed.
“Unfortunately, for example, the typical example for the level of impunity, they took 22.5million naira from each aspirant under the APC and after collecting that money from 17 aspirants, they went ahead to disqualify 10 of us and not allowed us to participate. I know that if I as a Kogite or you as a Kogite collect money from people to organize an event and you have collected these funds and do not allow them to participate you will be in the of the EFCC custody. This is an action that is not good for the party and is not good for the state. Actions like these have shown high level of impunity.
“The attack on Barrister Natasha Akpoti is horrendous. I believe that every Kogite should be safe, should be secured, should be allowed to compete fairly. Unfortunately, that level of attack, insecurity and plans like that, I do not stand for. I do not stand for the plans I already know are in place to rig the election in Kogi state. I have evidence towards that. I am willing to make sure that I work with every single Kogite to deliver the voice of the people.
“To this effect, I have to set up a call center already. The phone numbers will be made public. We have a GLO, MTN and Airtel networks to ease information dissemination. We are going to gather all the information, we are going to gather evidence of election violence.
“Unfortunately, at the last election, we saw a 19 year old killed in Anyigba, till today, no one has been arrested. This is very unfortunate in our history. In Nigeria, whenever there is election and election violence is been committed, none of the perpetrators are brought to justice. This we can no longer stand for. I call on all supporters of the #KogiFirst #KogiForAll movement, all those who love what we have done so far, and all those who love the late great Prince Abubakar Audu, all the Igalas, the Okun, the Ebiras to stand up! We need to stand together.
“I am giving my party the next 24 hours to change the actions and to show us plans on how they intend to govern Kogi in a different way. We are tired of being the bottom of every index. I have to speak the truth. I have to go against the grains because this is what must be done.
“So, within the next 48 hours I will be meeting all the former aspirants of the APC. Also, before the general election, I will be meeting with all the candidates of the other political parties. We are going to make sure that the voice of all Kogites are heard.
“Make sure you go and vote. I will be there, I will cast my vote and I will make sure that, not only my vote but your vote is defended and reported. Let the will of the people be done. Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.”
