Yesterday, Yahaya Bello won the most compromised APC primary election ever held in Nigeria in Lokoja. The exercise has no better name than fraud clothed in a party’s process. While every eligible Kogite has the right to vie for any position, it becomes a deliberate criminal intention for APC to muscle the most formidable candidates out of the way for its anointed yet socially and politically unfit candidate, Yahaya Bello, to win.
I am not averse to Bello’s victory in a free, credible and fair election if he has the mandate of the people. Removing powerful forces under the backcloth of disqualifying them through screening makes the process leading to the selection of Bello as the party’s flagbearer fraudulent. It is to me a deliberate payback of the large chunk of money received by the party from Bello, irrespective of what the workers and pensioners suffer.
Bello is famed with deliberate asphyxiation of the right, life and clime of the people for dehumanization. That Bello has not been paying salaries or that Lokoja has no roads in spite of the billions of Naira he collected is not a joke. It is on this basis that the people are committed to pushing him away. It is this outcry that should have formed the chassis of support a candidate should enjoy from his or her party, if the party is committed to serving the people. The welfare of the people of Kogi State is not the primary concern of the APC; it is the pockets of the many NWC members of the party.
You will recall that Governor Idris Wada applied for a bailout fund of N50.8 billion, but he was not allowed to have access to the money because the 2015, November gubernatorial election was near, and it was feared Wada would use the money to finance his election. If the Federal Government that was sensitive to the use of money then was as sensitive today, it would not have released the remaining N30.8 billion to Bello, knowing fully well the endemic embezzlement of public funds by Bello. If the FG was truly committed to its ideal of fighting corruption for the benefit of the masses, why should Bello have access to the money that he would not disburse for the purpose intended, considering his historic vice of non-payment of salaries?
It is clear that, Bello, having passed the first stage, will benefit Osun/Kano fraud of the APC, going by the body language of the Federal Government and the APC, and their disposition to make life difficult and make money from anywhere possible, and the endless quest for inhuman and oppressive disposition. INEC, no doubt,will be influenced to work in Bello’s favour, for the benefit of the Presidency, the APC and the INEC itself. Bello has the money and he is spending it in a manner that suits his needs. Workers and pensioners’ welfare does not matter.
Bello or his insensate supporters should not rejoice just yet; for we are committed to taking our destiny in our own hands by seeking alternative ways of getting our independence and liberation in another candidate. Bello should remember that he who wins primary election in Kogi State sometimes does not always rule. Echocho(in 2011) and Audu (in 2015), for example.
– Odih Daniel Nuhu writes from Lokoja, Kogi State.
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