Kogi 2019: APC’s Screening Committee Membership Rattles Governor Bello
The road to a second tenure for Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State is getting more bumpy and stormy as more hurdles appeared to have been place along his path to securing a return ticket.
This followed the news of the appointment of Hon James Abiodun Faleke as the Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Gubernatorial Screening Committee.
Forefront News gathered that the development sent jitters into the political spine of Governor Bello, who is believed to have quickly ran to one of the governors of the Northwest states believed to have some direct and workable links in the presidency for help in getting a reversal of the appointment of Hon Falake.
Further checks indicate that the camp of Governor Bello is not only jittery but equally knocked off balance in the political calculation ahead of the APC governorship primaries in Kogi state.
Bello is particularly concerned that Hon Faleke remains an interested party in the governorship contest in Kogi state and would therefore not given him a level playing field at the screening exercise of the party.
He has therefore launched a campaign against the appointment of Hon Faleke as chairman of the APC screening committee.
Accordingly, the governor is alleged to have vowed that he is prepared and determined to spend a substantial part of the 30.8 billion Naira bailout fund he collected recently to fight against the appointment of Faleke as the Chairman of the Screening Committee.
However, it was further gathered that apart from the issue of having Falake as Chairman of the APC screening committee, Bello is most likely going to face a reawakened hurdle that may prove difficult to scale through.
This has to do with the incidence of double registration as a voter with the Independence National Electoral Commission (INEC) for which he could not be sued for owing to the immunity he enjoys as a governor but which would not hold any authority during his screening as an aspirant of the party.
The double registration by Governor Bello is seriously being considered as one of the core reasons why he may be disqualified by the screening Committee.
Governor Yahaya Bello sometimes in 2017 was involved in INEC voter double registration scandal in his office at LUGARD House, an offence which led to the dismissal of three staff of the electoral umpire that participated in the illegal exercise.