Kogi Indigenes Insist On Direct Guber Primaries, Want Gov Bello Out!

Ahead of this year’s Governorship election in Kogi State, a group of concerned persons, under the aegis of Coalition of Kogi State Indigenes, has called on the All Progressives Congress (APC) to revisit its decision to conduct indirect primaries to elect the Party’s flag-bearer for the State.

For them, the APC stands the risk of losing the State at the polls if its plans of imposing an unpopular candidate like Governor Yahaya Bello on the people and the State materialise.

The group’s Convener, Comrade Richards Adebayo, said their plea is for President Muhammadu Buhari and the Party’s National Working Committee (NWC) to intervene in the issue and ensure the right thing is done in the spirit of equity and fairness.

Adebayo maintained that direct primaries presents the best method to choose an acceptable candidate by the people, noting that it represents a more democratic process than indirect primaries being proposed.

In a protest march staged in Abuja to get the party leadership and President Buhari’s attention, the Group said indirect primaries run contrary to the people wishes.

They accused the APC leadership of plotting to force the wrong person on Kogi people, warning that carrying out such unpopular plans means the party risked losing at the elections.

Referring to incumbent Governor Yahaya Bello as a hard product to sell given his performance in almost four years, Adebayo said the people of Kogi were tired of bad leadership and would prefer a better candidate from APC.

“For the past three and half years, our good people of Kogi state have suffered under the heavy burden of bad leadership on account of the near- zero governance initiatives of the ill-fated Yahaya Bello’s administration.

“We, the indigenes of Kogi state have resolved not to allow a repeat of the leadership disaster which happened to Kogi state.

“Democracy is all about the people and their inalienable right to choose who would lead them. The plan by the APC to foist indirect primaries on the good people of Kogi is not and would never be acceptable.”

According to him, “We reject it and whatever it portends. We are aware that it is a ploy to surreptitiously sneak Yahaya Bello back into Kogi government house.

“We demand for direct primaries because we believe it is a sure way to test the resolve of our people and what we want in leadership under APC.”

Challenging the governor to test his popularity in a direct primaries instead of hiding under an ‘undemocratic’ process to emerge the APC’s flag-bearer, the group said Kogi indigenes would not stand aloof and watch the return of Governor Bello to the Government house, given the bitter lessons that he has taught the people.

“Kogi people had never known suffering of such magnitude as they have been made to undergo these past three years. This is the ‘curse’ we want to cancel and chase away through direct primaries.

“Of what use is a government that has demonstrated the highest level of insensitivity and irresponsibility by owing its workers for over twenty months?

“Now, the APC, the party we built trust upon and believe would bring succor into governance are playing ‘more papal than the Pope’. We say No!

“While commending the leadership of our great party, the APC, for their proactivity in determining the process of choosing the flag bearer for the forthcoming kogi state gubernatorial election, we implore them to reverse themselves and approve direct primaries which is a more democratic and people centered process.”

Insisting that the group is resolute in its demands for a good and acceptable candidate to fly APC’s gubernatorial flag in the race for Kogi Government House, the group said; “We say enough is enough to leadership without human face: We say enough is enough to a leadership without followership: We say no to leadership of extreme selfishness: We say no to leadership without vision: We say no to leadership of retrogression.” – NAN