Kogi guber 2023: Politicians eyeing Bello’s seat

As preparations commence for parties to groom Governor Yahaya Bello’s successor, the field is still developing gradually in Kogi, as the state’s off-season election will take place months after next year’s general election. However, some early aspirants have started oiling machinery for a smooth run while others are doing strong advocacies for power to shift from Central to West. Ralph Agbana reports.

Smart Adeyemi 
ADEYEMI, Senator representing Kogi West is a politician to watch in the succession script set to unfold in the Confluence State.

In the run-up to the 2019 polls, Adeyemi was appointed Bello’s campaign coordinator, which couldn’t have been an accident. His ability to organise was not in doubt, having been two-term President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists and three times Senator of the Federal Republic.

Before then, he stood by the governor through thick and thin, especially in the early stages of the Yahaya Bello administration, when he was seen more as a pariah and had to struggle for legitimacy. The mainstream APC had disowned Bello’s government, largely to the dramatic and controversial manner he emerged after Abubakar Audu’s death, instead of James Abiodun Faleke, who was Audu’s running mate in the November 2015 election.

Adeyemi had the reputation of stepping in as chairman of Elders’ Advisory Council set up by Bello. His decision to accept the role brought him public opprobrium. Despite the abuses and condemnation from within and outside the APC, he maintained and justified his position throughout Bello’s first tenure. And even when the power blocks in the APC at the national level moved against Bello’s second term, Adeyemi stood by him to the extent of vowing to do anti-party if APC refused Bello ticket.

The governor in turn rewarded Adeyemi with a third term in the Senate by pulling the state might that ensured he upstaged his rival Senator Dino Melaye.

Once settled in the red chamber, vociferous in his support for Bello’s policies and his presidential bid, often drawing flaks from the opposition for his dogmatic support for his state governor, Adeyemi forged ahead.

He is an avowed advocate of power shift to his Kogi West constituency and is seen as one of the frontrunners should Bello decide to support a candidate from that zone. Beyond being the representative of Kogi West in the Red Chamber, Adeyemi has endeared himself to Kogi Central through his advocacies in favour of the resuscitation of Ajaokuta Steel Complex.

Reacting to the criticisms, Adeyemi told The Guardian: “When I defected to APC, I stepped on the toes of many Kogi leaders but today many that were against me are now in the APC. Now some are claiming that all my bills are just politics. It is not politics, my job is to make laws and use my brain to call the executive to the needs and aspirations of the people through appropriate legislation. It is ignorance to think we play politics by legislation. Once a bill is passed it can never die.”

Edward Onoja 
EDWARD ONOJA, an Igala is Bello’s deputy and a known confidant. He was Chief of Staff during Bello’s first tenure. Though he wielded so much power, often referred to as the de facto governor, not much of Onoja’s spackle during the first four years of the administration has been seen this second term, especially since he changed posts from CoS to Deputy Governor. This has been attributed to a speculated rift, which both Onoja and his boss serially denied. The tell-tale agreement between the two friends to see one take over power after the other is still one to anticipate.

Jamiu Asuku
ASUKU, an Ebira, since his elevation from Director of Protocol, Kogi State Government House to Chief of Staff to the governor towards the end of the first term, has been on the spot. He is central to speculations that Bello might hand over to his kinsman.

Probably the youngest chief of staff in the history of Kogi State, his appointment coming when he was 36 years old, he has the ears of his boss and has leveraged the relationship to ensure things move in the right direction. He is loyal and hard-working.

Oshaloto Joseph Tade, a former aide to Asuku told The Guardian: “Asuku, aside from being close to the youthful population in the state, has become a darling of the elderly because of his rare humility. In fact, many Kogites cannot think of anyone else to succeed Governor Yahaya Bello than the young Chief of Staff. The old order finds it very convenient to interface with him not merely on the basis of his competence but because he has the right temperament that does not intimidate or disrespect them. It is about the first time an individual would be enjoying such borderless goodwill among the young and old and across religious lines. Asuku, after his principal’s name, is on the lips of city dwellers and those in the rural areas.”

Toba Adebayo Belushi 
ADEBAYO, a Yoruba from Okunland, Kogi West, popularly called Belushi is a successful telecoms businessman with a large following, especially amongst the youth.

Having served in the first term of the Yahaya Bello administration as Senior Special Assistant on Project Monitoring, Adebayo has since gone back to his private business. His influence is said to cut across political parties and his Abuja office has become a Mecca for all shades of politicians and aspirants from Kogi West and beyond. He however spoke of his ambition as a vision not bound by time.

Babatunde Irukera 
A PRINCE of Egbe, Kogi West, Barrister Babatunde  Irukera, Executive Vice-chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) brims with an unquenchable desire to turn around the fortune of his home state. At his first attempt during the August 2015 primary, he was convinced to step down for Prince Audu, which he agreed to. He however participated in the 2019 primary where he came second after the incumbent governor Bello.

Within this period, he has established himself as a force to reckon with in state politics. As the FCCPC boss, his record of advocacy and representation in competition and consumer issues, promoting a level playing field in the Nigerian market place has increased his popularity at home.

Irukera and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo have some things in common. They both founded SimmonsCooper Partners, a law firm based in Lagos, where Irukera was a senior partner prior to Osinbajo’s election as Vice-President. That relationship could play a role in Irukera’s aspiration should things also look well for the VP.

Of late, Kogi Mandate Quest, a group urging Osinbajo to contest the 2023 presidential election, mobilised a powerful delegation of supporters from the three senatorial districts of Kogi State to the Eagle Square venue of the recently concluded APC national convention.

Also to be watched out for are the duo of the Commissioner for Finance, Mukadam Asiru Idris from Kogi West and the state Accountant General, Jibrin Momoh.

PDP 
FOR the PDP, the wounds of the loss of the 2019 election are yet to heal, while the dust raised as a result of the acrimony among the factional families of the Wadas and Ibrahim Idris and followers in Kogi East are yet to settle. Nevertheless, the party has remained strong and organised at the grassroots, especially in Kogi West, where it has two of the three members of the House of Representatives.

The party remains safe in the zone in the hands of the likes of former Deputy Governor Yomi Awoniyi, Senator Tunde Ogbeha and Prince Olusola Akanmode.

In the central, the arrival of Natasha Akpoti-Iduaghan, a governorship candidate in 2019, with thousands of her supporters who recently defected from the Social Democratic Party (SDP) boosted PDP’s rank. Former AGF and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke and erstwhile Deputy Governor, Philip Salawu, are also backing the PDP in the zone. However, preparations for the 2023 governorship are still like a slow train coming down the track. This may be the reason not much has been heard of PDP governorship aspirants. As of the time of this report, activities around the governorship in the PDP are near zero. Rather, what is predominant within the main opposition party are the contests for Senate, House of Reps and State Assembly constituencies; granted that the governorship election in Kogi State will not come earlier than the third quarter of 2023. It is envisaged that, after the conclusion of other categories of elections held next February, glimpses of what is to come from the PDP regarding the governorship would start to unfold.

Nevertheless, it is expected that prominent actors in the ill-fated 2019 governorship challenge by the PDP, such as Dino Melaye, Abubakar Idris (son of former Governor Ibrahim Idris), his in-law Musa Wada (brother to former Governor Idris Wada), and now, Natasha Akpoti-Iduaghan, will be available for the “unfinished business.”

Kogi East’s chances of returning to power
AS things stand, politicians in the Kogi East Senatorial district will have to decide what to do to ensure that their losses in 2015 and 2019 are not repeated. Any hope of reclaiming power by the Igala majority will have to depend on the possibilities of re-enacting the numbers that had played in their favour until 2015. The chances of power shifting back to Igala in 2023 cannot be absolute even with their numbers, considering the fact that it is no longer business as usual.

As it were, nothing is certain. What is however certain is that, unlike the pre-2015, the 2023 governorship election in Kogi State may not be in the hands of the majority tribe in Kogi East to solely determine. The minorities in Kogi Central and Kogi West, seem to have gained upper hand, depending on how they are able to manage the golden chance of having one of their own in the control of power for eight years. But Should Yahaya Bello opts for an Ebira to pick an APC ticket, emotions will be activated outside the central. There and then, anything is possible.

Political analysts are of the common view that once that happens, there may be no cohesion to stop power shifting back to Kogi East as the West may start to rethink their trust in fellow minority Ebira.

When The Guardian asked Senator Adeyemi to clarify his stance, on the power relations between Kogi Central and West, the Bello loyalist said that Kogi West having stood by their co-minority group in Kogi Central in the struggle for power shift, equity demands that their brothers from the Central will reciprocate in the spirit of brotherliness, fairness and justice.

Adeyemi dismissed reports that the governor will support a fellow Ebira in 2023, saying the speculations are baseless.

Kogi West and theories of exclusion  
CHIEF Tunde Olusunle, scholar and journalist, referred to Okunland, his part of Kogi State, as an area which has over the years, especially since the advent of democratic governance in 1999, been serially undermined and maltreated by successive governments.

He said: “Crowded out of meaningful representation at the level of the state, it was a magnanimous President Olusegun Obasanjo, who granted a reprieve to Okunland between 1999 and 2007, by ensuring that every minister who served in his cabinet was chosen from Okunland. This was an intentional decision by a strong-willed leader, to assuage our holistic exclusion, in the intricate geopolitical balancing of the state. By the time the incumbent government of Yahaya Bello ends in January 2024, Okunland would have effectively been shut out of governance for the more recent eight successive years at the state and federal levels from the period 2016 to 2024. If you add the four years of the Audu/Patrick Adaba administration; to the over eight years of the Ibrahim Idris/Phillip Salawu dispensation, and Bello’s eight, Okunland would have been pitilessly barricaded from Lugard House, Lokoja, for 20 years under the pseudo-democratic rule.”

Kogi West’s Chances in 2023
SUNDAY Karimi, a two-term member of the House of Representatives for Yagba Federal Constituency in an interview with The Guardian described Kogi as “a very delicate state, in terms of ethnopolitical problems”.  He is of the opinion that power should move to Kogi West after Bello’s eight years but with a warning that in view of their limited population strength, power shift to the zone can only be achieved through negotiations and identifying the ethnic group that is most likely to support Kogi West zone based on antecedents.

“Nobody will give you power without you negotiating for it. Don’t forget that our population in Kogi West is put at around 20 percent, Kogi Central about 30 percent and Kogi East about 45 percent. Going by this spread, and in an election determined first by ethnic considerations, we in Kogi West cannot singlehandedly win the governorship election; yes, it is good for us to agitate for it, it is our right. And where there is fair play, the two other senatorial districts should just say this time around, we are not contesting it, let all parties go and pick their candidates from Kogi West. But it doesn’t work like that. With God all things are possible. Who would have said Yahaya Bello would be governor. We need to do our homework, and identify and work with the bloc that is ready to shift power to us. We can reach out to the other blocs, and tell them ‘we have supported you before, you want us to support you again, we cannot continue doing that forever, when will it be our turn?’ That’s my take on power shift”.