During his second year in office anniversary, Governor Yahaya Bello promised to sent his ‘best eleven’ to replace current lawmakers representing Kogi State in the Senate and House of Representatives.
The ambitious young Kogi Governor is leaving no stones unturned to actualize this fantasy as he has almost concluded his list of ‘best eleven’ that will take over national assembly seats in 2019.
While the list of his preferred House of Representatives candidates is yet to be concluded, I have it on good authority that he has chosen three wise men that will take over the three senate seats in the state.
For Kogi East, Yahaya Bello’s wise man is Alhaji Jibrin Isah Echocho, a former executive director in the defunct AfriBank. For Kogi West, the loser of 2015 senatorial election, Smart Adeyemi has been chosen as his wise man. The choice for Kogi Central has been hard for Yahaya Bello and his strategists but baring last minute changes, he has tentatively anointed former Okehi chairman, Adagu Suberu as his wise man for the senate seat.
The current senators are all of the PDP and this situation has been a source of great heart ache for Yahaya Bello. The current Kogi West Senator Dino Melaiye is Yahaya Bello’s number one political enemy and a replacement for him is Bello’s major priority at the moment. Yahaya Bello will use any means, thinkable and unthinkable, to stop Dino from returning to the senate. Smart Adeyemi has been picked as Yahaya Bello’s armour bearer to dislodge Dino Melaiye.
Senator representing Kogi Central, Ahmed Salawu Ogembe, like Dino, used to be an ally of Yahaya Bello before things fell apart. In recent times, Ogembe has had to contend with same treatment meted on Melaiye by Yahaya Bello forces. His programmes are now constantly under attack and narrowly escaped physical hurt the last time he visited his constituency.
Senator Atai Aidoko is a nightmare for Edward Onoja, Yahaya Bello’s super chief of staff and commander-in-chief of the government. Aidoko and Onoja are both from Olamaboro local government in Kogi East. Onoja has launched several media assaults on Aidoko and is even touted as sponsoring the ongoing court case against Aidoko by Isaac Alfa. Two kings cannot reign in the same village, the two of them cannot be kings in Olamaboro, one has to go. Jibrin Isah Echocho has been picked as Yahaya Bello’s wise man for the senate.
The battle line is drawn, the game is about to start full throttle. However, there is need to examine Yahaya Bello’s three wise men for the senate.
Alhaji Jibrin Isah Echocho is not a new comer. He failed to realise his life-long governorship ambition in PDP and is now in APC. Curiously, Echocho rejected APC senate ticket offered him in 2014 by late Prince Audu but four years later, he is gladly accepting same from Yahaya Bello.
As Executive director in charge of treasury and operations at AfriBank, Jibrin Isah Echocho was alleged to be one of the masterminds behind most of the atrocities that brought down Afribank leading to the loss of its shareholders investments.
It will be recalled that the Nigerian Transparency Network, a Civil Society Organisation (CSO) called on EFCC to renew probe of Echocho’s alleged fraud in the bank. Its Executive Director, Mr Aliyu Ibrahim stated that the call was in the general interest of justice and the helpless shareholders whose investment had been hanging since the bank collapsed in 2009.
It said that the CSO had written a petition on the matter to the EFCC, and recalled that sometime in 2009 the commission began the prosecution of management staff of the bank over alleged fraud in the bank.
According to the CSO, EFCC had earlier told the court that Echocho was nowhere to be found in 2010 when he was visibly seen campaigning to become a gubernatorial candidate of PDP. He can still be found now if EFCC is truly committed to the fight against corruption in line with President Muhammodu Buhari’s administration’s alleged zero tolerance to corruption.
Moving to Kogi Central, the wise man for the senate, Alhaji Adagu Suberu is also well known to the people.
In 2011, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) began an investigation into the disappearance of three out of five 500 KVA transformers meant for some rural areas in Okehi Local Government Area of Kogi State, under the administration of Honourable Abubakar Suberu Adagu.
Only two electricity transformers were installed in Eyika Adagu and Uhuoze, both in Eyika district, while the whereabouts of the three others were unkbown, as then chairman denied any knowledge of them.
However, years later, there was a breakthrough as one of the transformers was found at Crestwood Hotel in Lugbe, Abuja, belonging to the former chairman, Hon Adagu Suberu.
Shortly after the discovery, his successor as local government chairman, Hon Yusuf Hassan was alerted from the EFCC headquarters, that one of the missing transformers under the administration of Hon Adagu had been found.
on August 25, 2014, the local government wrote officially to the EFCC for the release of the electricity transformer.
The letter signed by the chairman, Hon Yusuf commended the EFCC for the breakthrough, noting that the former chairman had been under investigation for various criminal offences committed while he held sway.
The transformer was handed over to the chairman at Wuse office of the commission in Abuja on 19th November, 2014.
The wise man for Kogi West senate seat, Smart Adeyemi, is not new to controversies. His third term bid was truncated by electorate in 2015 but like a straying dog that will not listen to the hunter’s whistle, he has defected to APC in search of a return to the senate.
