Kogi elders: Where are Ahmadu Ali and others

In the said letter, it appealed to the President to urgently arrest what was referred to as a “serious drift” in the state or “risk the sudden death of the party in the state.” You accused Idris Wada’s administration of illegalities, incompetence, corruption and lacking a sense of direction. In the statement it also accused […]

In the said letter, it appealed to the President to urgently arrest what was referred to as a “serious drift” in the state or “risk the sudden death of the party in the state.” You accused Idris Wada’s administration of illegalities, incompetence, corruption and lacking a sense of direction.

In the statement it also accused Wada, as having “absolutely no clue how to run a modern state.” They also accused him of continuing the tradition of his godfather “of squandering state resources on acquisition of personal properties with government funds…”

I expected a letter of that magnitude which emanated from the “elders” of the party from our dear state to have the endorsement of the party’s founding members like Senator Ahmadu Ali, erstwhile national chairman of PDP, Senator Tunde Ogbeha, General David Medayese Jemibewon, Architect Gabriel Adukwu, among others.

Will these eminent citizens some of whom laboured for the realization of what is today Kogi state not step forward to prevent the state from “drifting into anarchy?”

One striking thing about the authors of the said letter is that except for John Odawn and Alex Kadiri, the rest purchased declaration of intention forms and were duly screened as contenders for the party ticket. Both Ojo and Atawodi withdrew at the last moment, citing alleged hijacking of adhoc delegates to the last primaries as reason. Since then, the duo along with Alhaji Jibrin Echocho have teemed up with the opposition to fight their party man who the Almighty entrusted with the responsibility of steering the ship of the state. So the reference in the statement to Wada as “ the man who was not even a card-carrying member of our party when he was imposed on us as governorship candidate in 2011” betrayed an emotion.

They want the governor to perform, yet all they did since the primaries and the eventual election is to frustrate him. They aligned with the opposition to vote against him; yet they claimed to have worked for the party’s victory in that election.

They want Wada to work, yet all they have been doing since his emergence is to distract him. One doesn’t need statistic to know that 80 percent of litigations against Wada since he declared interest to vie for the state top most position till date were from the so called party members. Some went to court through proxies.  They set booby traps for him, while also forcing him to walk through them.

It is correct that there is deepening poverty and crisis of infrastructure in the state –“all due largely to chronic mis-governance and endemic corruption of the last decade”.  However, they expect Wada to fix the anomalies in just less than 10 months in office. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a step as the old saying goes. Wada met a state which was already on its knees. The rot and deterioration was in virtually all sectors, addressing them will definitely takes time, especially with lean purse that accrues to the state as monthly allocation.

It is sad that in their aggrieved state, they couldn’t see that the projects started by the immediate past administration in the state are presently on-going. They would rather see those ones abandoned as were the case elsewhere.

The political landscape is being sanitized and cleansed from the combat of thuggery and youth restiveness which the so-called elders encouraged. There is on-going restoration of sanity and discipline to government business and the society at large. If  as they said they are “ready to make a fundamental change in Kogi State’ because they are “tired of the maladministration and looting of the last 10 years,” what I think they should do is to join hands with Wada in his  on-going efforts to stir the state on the path of development and growth. He has since extended a hand of fellowship to you and others to join in fostering partnership in this direction.

Mohammed wrote in from Kabawa, Lokoja, Kogi State