Groups insist on direct primary for Kogi guber election

A coalition of All Progressives Congress (APC) Support Groups and Kogi Save Our Souls Group have charged President Muhanmadu Buhari and National Chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomhole to save Kogi State from crisis.

Their call is coming on the heels of the November 2019 gubernatorial election in the state, insisting that the intervention would ensure the emergence of a credible candidate for the party.

They said the leadership of the party under Governor Yahaya Bello has failed the people and the party.

Addressing protesters in Lokoja yesterday, leaders of the groups, Abubakar Tanko and Suleiman Aliyu urged the President and Oshiomhole to adopt direct primaries for the election.

But in a swift reaction, Director General of Media and Publicity to the governor, Kingsley Fanwo, said Bello as a party man and a foundation member of the party, was willing to work with any decision reached by the party.

He said the governor was familiar with the party’s constitution and the need to wait for its leadership to discuss modalities for the primary, adding: “He is prepared to wait for the decision.”

However, the groups insisted that Kogi people were dying from lack of payment of salary and pension, adding that besides lack of physical development and bad roads, epileptic hospital services and sorry state of schools, workers and pensioners were living in penury

“We know Buhari to be a man of integrity and Oshiomhole as a man of his words who share in peoples sufferings.”

“We have seen his good works in Edo State, while he was governor and we want the next governor of Kogi State to emulate Oshiomhole in terms of road construction, provision of water and lifting of basic education among projects that have direct impact on the people,” they said.

They also urged President Buhari to actualise autonomy of the judiciary and local governments, and appealing to Oshiomhole to help them by using direct primaries in the forthcoming election.

But Fanwo described the group as hired protesters from Abuja, saying: “We won’t comment on persons who are paid to protest. It is their choice to protest. Kogi people don’t protest to elect leaders. They vote. And in February and March, they exercised that right to show their confidence in the leader of the state.”