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There’s always a sentimental argument that most of the rallies being held in Kogi state are peopled with rented crowds. Those who hold this argument are probably right. It is just that being “right”is different from being “correct”. You can be ignorantly RIGHT and realistically INCORRECT.
Let me romance your thinking a little: In the arrangement making the APC which is a pour-in from many political parties in Nigeria, with PDP in dilapidated membership; why do people think we have two political parties currently in Nigeria? It is a funny way to think. Even in sentiments, the appropriate ones should be selected.
Kogi state currently has a voter record of about 1.6m persons in the over 4.3m population. More than half of the registered voters are party faithful. How then can people rent crowds when those who are in those parties own the PVCs? In another vein, with PDP having no direction and funding, how can the argument that crowds from PDP are being rented into the APC when the APC is currently the only “active” party, a year to election in the state?
As for the other stadium of hypocrites saying the current Government shared money amongst those who attended. Who invites people for an emerging political consciousness without providing logistics for their transportation and feeding? Would it not be the same leech-talking-empty heads that would say the APC as a party is irresponsible if monies aren’t provided in logistics to drive the party’s programmes?
To this talk:
They keep asking, “why have they been organising different rallies if they enjoy followership of the masses”?
It is also an argument from an ignoramus for the following reasons:
The administration of Governor Yahaya Bello staged a youthful entrance into politics with a new ideology and governance panache in Nigeria. The energy of the youths, the New Direction policies and their proposed plans cannot be activated by the old hags and hands that have been at the engine room of the mediocre system Kogi maintained for almost 13 years.
There’s always a need to crash the system and rebuild. For very sensitive people, what Governor Bello and his strategists did for the year (s) on was to totally crash the old system and structures. It is commonsensical that no sound civil engineering would allow planting of houses that would last a lifetime on a “faulty foundation”.
You would then ask: Who were those in charge of the engine room of government and its political structures in the state? That question would reveal many things. Some areas were crashed while others were patched. The crashing of the system included things such as: Civil service reforms, Kogi State University remodification of power apparatik and internal party disputes. These things led to many controversies, soaked in deep sentiments which cloaked the real vision of the “strategist” behind the New Direction ideology.
The phase of crashing is now over. We are now witnessing “Rebuilding”. In the process of rebuilding, a new wine is being poured into a fresh whine skin.
How do you receive the patched whine skin? Rallies. It makes official statements of a like-mind-political-gathering. It doesn’t always determine electoral outcomes. It only sends electoral message.
What Gov. Bello is doing now is a building of his political structure. He is empowering his party. Individuals don’t run for elections in Nigeria without identifying with a party. He is clear about it.
In closing, I would like these questions for some hypocrites to answer:
1. When did Nigerians start attending rallies without mobilisation for logistics?
2. Why are those chanting rented crowds not organising their own rallies to test the strength of their own assumptions?
You’ve answered these questions in your mind?
Let me help you imagine another scenario. The staggering crowd which filled the stadium, along with their differently branded shirts which ran across their faces, smiles and jubilation for recognition is just a child’s play.
Let me tell you why:
If the APC in Kogi state fields her first eleven team, what is the opposition? Besides that, when the primaries are held, which would carry 25 Assembly members, 3 Senatorial aspirants from the 3 senatorial districts, and 9 Federal House of Representatives members, ALL coming with their supporters, would the Lokoja Stadium or even Lokoja metropolis be enough to contain them? That is just a picture. I suppose your insane logic would think those people gunning for different elective positions would also hire crowds for rallies. Obviously, they would even hire votes.
Meanwhile, a striking semblance of the New Direction pattern is the reality that elections are still far away. Party primaries are yet to be held. Christmas and Sallah is yet to come, but the APC in kogi State can bring together that magnitude of crowd. I would like to see PDP, ADP, APP, APGA or even SEPGA try to bring that kind of “hired crowd” together.
Only politicians with philistinic mentality, soaked in correct ignorance would think that licking their sore wounds on social media or mocking the efforts of a focused leadership drive can validate their own party’s preparation.
Meanwhile, for an APC to have this kind of mobilised gathering, it means there’s an effective structure with appropriate communication line and agile facilitation. I have noticed that there’s top to bottom impact. The expected impact from the top reaches the bottom. That is why, deprived and forgotten but striving politicians are getting a reach-out. They are getting appropriate identification. Which youth wouldn’t want such a union that has a New Direction outlook?
In that same crowd I saw yesterday, there was colourful unification. You would see party faithful from different divides embracing and eating in political union which is focused for one goal. The youthful energy and embellishment was a stunner. I haven’t witnessed much rallies in Kogi state with such finesse.
Did you also notice that internal clash of interests which would have amounted to violence was not even “imagined” by any body? That is unlike mega rallies in Kogi State.
To onion the rally, the very significantly shiny APC State office (Secretariat), before Ganaja junction is a reiteration of the mindset of Gov. Bello and his people. It is there for you to see. For even in the scripture, it is written: “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh”. The APC office and the recently held mega rally has spoken about the future we all should envisage on.
It is also very important to come out with this point. The “detribalised nature of Gov. Bello, reticent in his appointments, along with his youthful vigor which is open to creative thinking, it may be difficult for the PDP or other parties and their hirelings to always sentiment themselves into power. The same quality he has which has eliminated tribalism, religious sentiments and favouritism, along with contemporary creative actions, it would be like a man who wishes to dry the river Niger by using spoons to empty the water into bucket, in an attempt to defeat him in 2019.
As a rebel against ignorant thinking, I would advise that those who shout through their minions on social media with paints of propaganda and emotive arguments to confuse Kogites, should buckle up with newer strategies. The Government is not a perfect one, but the people are gradually understanding the “dream”. Some of these challenges didn’t start with Yahaya Bello.
Lastly, I heard some appointed excos of the touted “opposition” in the state, numbering up to 30, recently shunned their “4 years mandate as bosses” to maintain a floor ground in the Kogi APC. Maybe they ought to be working proactively to prevent another exodus from their party, to give us a viable opposition, rather than firing bullets of propaganda on social media and a band of empty assumptions.
As a young Kogite, the mega rally yesterday pimple of the Character of the Governor. You don’t have to agree, it is my opinion. His non-ethnic mien, youthful intelligence, non-religious stature, charismatic leadership, deeply penetrative strategy and Leadership sagacity is why that crowd was populated yesterday amidst our mountain of challenges. The remaining noise about rented crowd is just a self consolation of people drowning in their own inability to provide Kogi State a viable opposition.
Las las, if you think I am a sycophant, I agree. I would rather sycophant a non-Igala who lifts ban on 5 important cultural festivals of my people which has been comatose for decades, than to be an ethnic bigot to my own kinsmen who have done nothing for me. For us. For my own people. The same people they came from. Their own people. Their own people who is nobody to them.
We have now seen Bello who is gradually looking into things my own people didn’t care about, you’re asking me to change him? How can a beauty Queen use Pomade on her skin when there’s an option of Fair and white skin nourishing cream? Mercedes V-Boot and Gwagon nor be mate.
Park well, Kogi is rising…
– Kogi Rebel (Promise Emmanuel)
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