Power-sharing in multi-ethnic societies is not a courtesy; it is the foundation of legitimacy and stability. Where power circulates, citizens feel represented. Where it is concentrated, mistrust grows. Montesquieu warned that power which refuses to rotate eventually invites resistance. This truth applies clearly to Kogi State’s political structure.
Kogi is composed of three co-equal regional identities: Igala/Bassa in the East, Ebira in the Central axis, and Okun and related groups in the West. None of these regions is an appendage to the others. Any lasting political settlement must therefore reflect shared ownership of the state. Rotation of the governorship is not a sentimental arrangement, it is a stabilizing principle that prevents dominance and reinforces unity.
It is within this framework that the position of His Excellency Yakubu Murtala Ajaka must be properly understood. His intervention following the two-term administration of Governor Yahaya Bello did not arise from personal ambition, but from a principled commitment to rotational equity. Kogi East cumulatively held the governorship for sixteen years, but that leadership was internally rotated: Prince Abubakar Audu from Ofu, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris from Omala, and Captain Idris Ichalla Wada from Dekina. Three governors, three different Local Governments. Rotation functioned as a stabilizer.
Kogi Central’s trajectory has been different. After eight years under Governor Yahaya Bello from Okene, the current administration, also from Okene, is positioned to extend executive control to twelve years, and potentially sixteen. Such a succession structure would place the governorship under one Local Government for an entire political era. That is not rotation. That is concentration. And concentration, in a diverse state, does not build unity, it strains it.
Ajaka’s stance was clear and publicly articulated. In his interview with Seun Okinbaloye on Channels Television, he stated that after Governor Bello’s tenure, fairness required that power rotate to Kogi West, which has never produced a governor since 1999. He further explained that if this adjustment toward equity was honored, he would not contest and would personally mobilize Kogi East to support that transition. This was not transactional positioning; it was a strategic appeal to justice. John Rawls defined justice as fairness, and Ajaka aligned squarely with that political ethic.
He could have chosen the easier route and argued for power to return to Kogi East, which holds decisive electoral leverage. Instead, he chose the harder but principled path: fairness over convenience, balance over advantage. It was not resistance, it was foresight.
But the path taken by the state moved in the opposite direction. Power was positioned to remain within the same Local Government. Aristotle observed that inequality breeds resentment, and resentment ultimately seeks correction. A political arrangement that sustains regional exclusion invites long-term instability.
Ajaka chose consistency over convenience. He did not adjust his values to the direction of power; he allowed power to move in response to his values. This is the difference between political actors and statesmen. He stepped away from the imbalance and submitted his position to the electorate, the ultimate democratic court. The 2023 election became a referendum, not merely on candidacy, but on fairness itself.
The election results removed all ambiguity: Kogi East holds decisive electoral leverage. But the significance is not numerical, it is moral. When a region that has the ability to take power chooses instead to correct imbalance, that is the highest form of political maturity. For Kogi West, the implication is clear: the pathway to 2027 must be guided not by promises, but by historical record. Equity is not achieved through words, it is demonstrated through sacrifice.
To restore balance, Kogi West must return to the negotiation table with those who defended its right when it was most inconvenient to do so. Kwame Nkrumah cautioned that no region must dominate another, for the state exists to serve all equally. Ajaka’s position is rooted precisely in this doctrine.
Kogi State cannot advance under any arrangement where one senatorial district, or more narrowly, one Local Government, becomes the assumed heir to the governorship. When power is treated as inheritance, the state becomes territory. When power is shared, the state becomes a community. He defended the right of every region to see itself in the state. Without that, unity cannot endure.
If fairness is now called an agenda, then it is the only agenda that can sustain a diverse state. Any politics without justice is merely the rehearsal of future conflict.
Leadership is not defined by convenience, but by courage at the moment when imbalance is easiest to ignore. Yakubu Murtala Ajaka stood for balance when it carried personal cost. He stood for justice when silence would have been easier. He stood for unity when division was politically profitable.
That principle, not any election, is what will outlive us all.
– Yusuf, M. A. writes form Kogi state.
