Yahaya Bello and Dino Melaye
As the clock ticks on the November 11 governorship election in Kogi State, the post-primary crisis rocking the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is getting messier as the internal mechanism to resolve the impasse has not produced positive results.
Deepening the crisis were the decisions of Senator Smart Adeyemi and Abubakar Achimugu, to file two separate appeals at the Supreme Court, last week, challenging the nomination of Usman Ododo as the party’s candidate.
Many party faithful who thought the matter would end at the Appeal Court, following reconciliation moves by the party leaders in the state were taken aback with the renewed legal tussle, which they consider as a distraction to the unity required to win the election.
Although Governor Yahaya Bello has inaugurated the campaign council to commence statewide mass mobilisation of voters, the party is still divided along cleavages.
The Guardian checks revealed great optimisms in the camps of other parties’ candidates like Senator Dino Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); Hon. Leke Abejide of the African Democratic Congress (ADC); MurtalaYakubu Ajaka of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Olayinka Braimoh of the African Alliance (AA), among others, waiting to benefit from the APC crisis.
Incidentally, Abejide and Ajaka are no strangers to the APC. Abejide campaigned for the Tinubu/Shetima Presidential ticket during the last general elections, despite being ADC member of the House of Representatives, while Ajaka was APC’s Deputy National Publicity Secretary before he decamped to SDP. Observers are of the opinion that both ADC and SDP governorship candidates are waiting to harvest aggrieved members of the APC, if there was no political solution to the crisis before the election.
Former member, Kogi State House of Assembly, Hon Nathaniel Taiwo, who spoke to The Guardian, regretted that the cases were allowed to get to the Supreme Court. He blamed the crisis on the inability of Governor Bello to consult widely before endorsing Ododo for the ticket. He likened the Supreme Court cases to tossing a coin, saying head or tail, the party has plenty of work to do, as the outcome could be “disastrous”.
Taiwo, who was a former chairman, Kabba-Bunu Local Council said: “In my humble opinion, the party should not have allowed them to go to court in the first place. They are committed members of the party. Senator Adeyemi was the campaign Director General of Governor Yahaya Bello during his second term election.
“The governor too stood by him during his third term senate election and also when his wife died. So, it is not as if they are fighting. I expected the governor to have called him as a brother and resolve the matter.
“The committee that conducted the primary election did not do the right thing and this is the basis of Senator Adeyemi’s argument. For our party to stand well in this election, the crisis is beyond what Governor Bello can handle. The national body, under the leadership of Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, should wade in and resolve the matter amicably. If Senator Adeyemi loses at the Supreme Court, it will have effect on the party’s chances because his supporters may back out in an election we need the majority to win.
“For me, I can’t vote for another party because I have laboured to contribute to the building of APC in Kogi State. If he wins his appeal and the Supreme Court orders a rerun of primary as he requested, the party will have to decide the mode of the rerun election, either by direct, indirect or consensus.
“The party will have to go back to the drawing board, starting all over again, which will be a serious setback.
“Beyond the Supreme Court cases, the party is still grappling with the choice of candidate from Kogi Central when all eyes are on Kogi West to produce Governor Bello’s successor in the spirit of fairness, equity and justice.”
The governor, after eight years, he noted, decided to pick his successor from his own area even when he had a lot of capable loyalists in Kogi West to pick from. He declared that the governor did not do enough to bring all shades of opinion to a round table as expected of a leader and father figure in the Kogi APC family.
But Dr Tom Ohikere, who is supporting Ododo’s candidature, commended Governor Bello for his ingenuity and leadership in galvanising the party structure for unprecedented success in the state, saying that the choice of Ododo will guarantee victory for the party.
Ohikere, who was a strong supporter of Senator Adeyemi and an advocate of power rotation to Kogi West reasoned with Governor Bello and the party structure that Ododo will win the election and continue with Bello’s programme in making Kogi great.
Ohikere, who was a former Commissioner of Information in the state, noted that Ododo, as Auditor General for Local Governments, was one of the brains behind the evolution of a 32-year development plan for the state,expressing great optimism about the prospects of the state experiencing greater and even development, if he wins the election.
He said; “In every political development across the globe, politicians come together with varied interests and in the scramble, you expect crisis of interests and in Kogi State, we have had politicians come into the APC with varied interests or tendencies.
“For example, in the last APC Governorship Primary Election in Kogi, I believed that the ticket should go to Kogi West, especially Senator Adeyemi, but leadership is an act of God and He gave it to Kogi Central. Who am I to fight the cause of God? The person who got it is my own younger brother. Will I now fight myself? So, I have decided to play by the will of God.
“I cannot play anti-party, realising the fact that I was part of the five key people, who established APC in Kogi. I cannot play anti-party when my brother Ododo is the candidate of the party. I cannot work against him. So, my party must win the next election in Kogi State.
“I have keenly followed political developments in the state and Ododo has been talking about real issues, rather than sentiments. This is one of the reasons I have come on board – to set agenda – because we shall be discussing developmental issues.”
He said APC members are going through the process of reconciliations and realignments. “I am very sure that, because I am here, Senator Adeyemi believes in me and I am going to speak with him,” he stated.
In the suit he filed, Adeyemi prayed the Supreme Court justices to determine, among others, whether, in accordance with the provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act (as amended), results of a state-wide primary election declared solely based on election held in 11 wards of a local government (Kogi/Kotonkarfe) out of 239 wards, be sufficient to nominate a governorship candidate by a party, exclusive of 228 electoral wards.
Consequently, the appellant prayed for the nullification of the April 14 direct primary election of the APC in Kogi State. He is further asking the apex court to order a fresh primary election to be conducted either by direct, indirect or by consensus mode, based on superior argument, for the nomination of a candidate lawfully elected by the majority of the members of the APC in Kogi State.
He argued that among other irregularities, the results as announced at the end of the April 14 direct primary election were not in consonance with the results the committee claimed to have collated across the wards in the state.
“That in the process of allocating votes to the various aspirants, the election committee decided to allot a bogus 78,704 votes to Ododo and 311 votes – the least number of votes to him.”
He also insisted that the number of votes announced for Ododo was higher than the figure recorded, while that for Adeyemi was lower.
Achimugu, on the other hand, is contesting the qualification of Ododo on the basis of improper resignation while still allegedly drawing salaries from the government even after he purportedly turned in his resignation letter.
He averred that claims that Ododo submitted his resignation letter to Governor Bello was untenable and an afterthought, as the appropriate channel to do so is the Civil Service Commission, which copies ought to have been submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the party.
Other aspirants who challenged the outcome of the primaries included former Minister of State for Education, Prof. Stephen Ocheni; former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of APC, Murtala Ajaka, Shuaibu Audu, son of former governor, the late Abubakar Audu and immediate past Executive Director of the Rural Electrification Agency, Sanusi Ohiare. They have withdrawn their petitions in the “interest of the party” remaining Adeyemi and Achimugu.
However, tactical reconciliation and peace moves by Governor Bello led to the appointment of Shuaibu Audu as Minister of Steel Development by President Bola Tinubu.
The governor also welcomed an array of former PDP stalwarts into the ruling party, notably, former Deputy Governor, Yomi Awoniyi, among others. But if all these developments are enough to win the election is yet to be seen.
The Guardian
