Kogi East Critical Stakeholders have told Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo to resign having failed to live up to expectations of his exalted office.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Monday, the stakeholders said Ododo has declared himself unworthy of governance by publicly directing his commissioners, civil servants and other government officers to ignore his constitutional directives should that conflict with that of former Governor Yahaya Bello’s directives.
Chairman of the forum, Alhaji Sule Iyaji said the public will like to know the status of Alhaji Yahaya Bello in the current administration of Governor Ododo to warrant such directives.
“If Governor Ododo fails to resign within seven (7) working days, the state house of Assembly should commence impeachment proceedings against him”.
They pleaded with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to intervene in the worsening security situation in Omala and Dekina Local Government Areas and other parts of the state.
Iyaji, who said the stakeholders reached the position after carrying out a comprehensive review of the state of affairs in Kogi State, noted that the president’s intervention has become necessary because of the inability of the Kogi State government to arrest the prevailing serious security situation.
“It is on this note that we join other Nigerians in the call for the creation of state and local government police, because we believed that where there is a balance of terror, the security situation will abate as no community will watch their land and resources being taken over by strangers or land grabbers.
“Herders have taken over the administration of our fishing and agrarian communities and levying taxes on the hapless citizens for their own use and sacking them from their farmlands and fishing grounds. The herders are equally expanding their control to other communities thereby creating unrest and displacement of our people,” he said.
The forum said Governor Ododo should refrain from dragging revered traditional institutions in Kogi State into politics and face his rejection by the vast majority of the people and defend the mandate he stole from its rightful owner in court.
The elder statesmen said the forum condemned in its entirety “the fraudulent manner the former governor Yahaya Bello dethroned some traditional rulers in Kogi” and suggested that Governor Ododo should as a matter of urgency reinstate the four traditional rulers, His Royal Highness, the Ohimege Igu Konto Karfe, Alhaji Abdulrazaq Isa Koto, who was also the chairman, Lokoja/Kogi Local Government Area Traditional Council; His Royal Highness Sam Bola Ojao, the Olu Magongo of Magongo; His Royal Highness Adayi Onimisi, the Obobanyi of Emani in the interest of peace and harmony.
For accountability and transparency in the area of revenue of the state, the group called on Governor Usman Ododo to declare without delay, how much Kogi State is receiving as oil producing state.
The convener of the group said, since the past two years that Kogi state was declared one of the oil producing states in the country, nothing in terms of economic growth, payment of salaries and development of the host communities have taken place.
“All the extra revenues accruing from the 13% derivations were presumably stolen by former Governor Yahaya Bello,” the group said.
