‘Kogi stakeholders should now agree on mode of power rotation’

Dr Abdulrahman Musa Adeiza is the President General of Ebira Peoples Association (EPA). In this interview, he speaks on the political situation in Kogi State and the just concluded governorship election. Excerpts: What is your view on the election? We appreciate God Almighty for all He has done for us during the election. The election […]

Dr Abdulrahman Musa Adeiza is the President General of Ebira Peoples Association (EPA). In this interview, he speaks on the political situation in Kogi State and the just concluded governorship election. Excerpts:

What is your view on the election?

We appreciate God Almighty for all He has done for us during the election. The election came and went and a winner has emerged. But in totality, the entire state is the winner. Whatever might have been the shortcomings of the election should serve as a source of correction for future election. I will personally like to sympathise with those that sustained one injury or the other during the election and I will like to commiserate with those who lost their loved ones during the election. I will like to point out that whatever we are having as a democracy in Nigeria today, it is still at a teething stage and a lot of changes need to be done to moderate and modify it. I believe there is need to utilise the advantages of technology to modify the electoral process in the country so that electorate can even cast their votes electronically so that the issue of queuing up will not be there again. This will invariably end electoral violence as people can vote from their homes, offices, markets and other places. This is achievable through the commitment of the government. And gradually, the country will perfect the electoral process. This will also go a long way in reducing the high rate of violence often experienced during elections. The issues and complaints of ballot snatching will be permanently solved. Regardless of the little hitches experienced during the governorship election in Kogi, the election was good, free and fair. I want to use this opportunity to congratulate the winner of Kogi state governorship election, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, who has often demonstrated that he is capable and can withstand pressure to move the state to the next level of development and I wish him all the best.

The three major tribes form a coalition. Can you tell us what the coalition stand for?

For now, I am not authorised to speak on behalf of the coalition. But definitely, we are going to speak out and talk about the development in the state. But I can say that we have met twice and the next time we meet, we will come out with a resolution. However, what borders us much is the peace and unity of the state and we have called on the entire people of the state to close ranks and come together in support of whoever is in government. We are calling on everybody to be peace loving and ensure that we don’t allow a single incident to go deep down to possibly divide the entire state. We are united in calling on our people to maintain the current peace and to support the winner of the election so that the government can be successful in delivering the dividends of democracy to the people which is key in any democratic setting. If the government is not successful, it is the entire state that will carry the burden and the burden as a result of the failure of administration is never limited to any particular tribe. So far, we have observed that the winner of the election, which is the APC, has a sizeable proportion of supporters across the three senatorial districts, meaning that the victory cannot be limited to a certain set of people or tribes alone. To this extent, we believe that if the government pursues peaceful measures, the entire state will be in a position to initiate a lot of development and we believe that the current government is in a position to ensure the development of the state .

I want to believe that our governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, will find a way of creating a focus for the entire state, where the overriding effect will be the state instead of primordial issues of where I come from. It will be enough to galvanise the interest of the people for the advancement of the state and generally the development will be achieved.

What do you think the federal government can do to get things right in the next general election coming up in 2023?

Personally, I have always felt that the way the democracy of this country was conceived called for a lot to be desired. In 1999, when the country was moving from military regime to civilian government, there was call for the formation of political parties. The party guideline was so expensive and cumbersome to an extent that people with good and lofty ideas did not have the money and were taken away out of the circle. In other countries, things are not done like that because there are institutions that assist the people to circumvent the capital intensive nature so that they can participate in electoral process. In this country, you will be charged to open offices in virtually all the 774 local government areas of the federation and if you are not rich, you cannot achieve that even if you have good ideas that can move the country forward. But in other climes, parties enter informal agreement with institutions. If you win, we will produce three ministers and as such the organisation or individuals render financial assistance to the party. But in this country, many people that are intelligent are excluded from attaining the position of governance through the cumbersome nature of party formation.

The level we are today, the major problem we have as a nation is the electoral process as a result of that the country is developing certain level of democratic characters in such a way that we are learning to tolerate protest which is different from military regime. Gradually, if we can change the mode of election through revisiting of Electoral Act, nothing stops us from using technology to conduct our elections because what we are doing right now cannot be said to be perfect. The use of technology will also show the actual population of some ethnic groups that claim that they are large in number and it is time government should not use population alone for sharing of monthly allocation. This will discourage padding of population during census. One nauseating thing being bandied around as truth is the allocated census figures of the past which was designed to reduce my people to a minority status. Much as this lie has been peddled around for too long and now made to look like the truth, I want to say with clear equivocation that the past population figure allocated to my people, Ebira, was at best fictitious, fraudulent and manipulated. I call it allocation because the then powers that be in the state connived to contrive those figures allocated to the west and central senatorial districts to ensure the perpetual political domination of the east of the state over others. At this juncture, I will like to commend the Federal Government for their desire to conduct a more credible and digital census. I am not in doubt that after that exercise, the truth shall be unveiled to the world and we shall be able to seek reparation for the accumulated hurt and harm done to our district. The era of manipulative dominance should be over, considering the voters turnout vis-a-vis the registered voters declared for each district by INEC. The votes counted in each area of dominance of the respective candidates against the backdrop of the voters registered in such areas is probable demonstration of the population strength of area. It is generally agreed that Alhaji Yahaya Bello inherited the votes of th late Alh Abubakar after his painful demise. He benefitted from the labour of the late Audu on the ground of the APC party being the original owner of the votes and he as the second runner up at the party’s primary was qualified with the entitlement of inheritance of the votes. It was a painstaking process and exercise borne out of constitutional interpretations and not a gentle man arrangement of power rotation to the other zones. It therefore needs to be tested at the courts of law as to whether GYB was actually having a first term or was merely there in the garb of another man’s votes and therefore just preparing to start his own first term. In any case, it is not debatable that the Central Senatorial District is just about having its first term, thereby making it equitable for it to go for a second round in a two round rotation of governorship seat that God has divinely decreed on our state with the death of our late leader, Abubakar Audu. I suggest having this at the back of our minds, stakeholders in the state should now agree on a mode of power rotation in pursuance of peace and unity in the state.