In about 24 hours, the electorate
in Kogi will file out in their thousands to put their thumbs on the ballot
towards determining their fate for another four years.
Within the last couple of weeks,
the race for the Lugard House in the Confluence State has been filled with
activities of various political gladiators, who have struggled to win voters to
their sides. It is, however, now very clear who the leading candidates are.
Prior to the November 7 judgement
of the Federal High Court, Abuja, ordering INEC to include the Social
Democratic Party (SDP) and its candidate, Natasha Akpoti, in the ballot, the
list of candidates had been pegged to 23. The new development has increased the
number to 24.
About 49 candidates had earlier
signified interest to take part in the poll, but for reasons of not meeting the
required criteria and provisions of electoral law, 18 political parties were
disqualified by INEC while eight others declared their support for the
incumbent.
The remaining 24 candidates are
Abdullahi Muhammed (Accord Party); Muhammadul-Kabir A. (African Action
Congress); Medupin Ephraim (Alliance for Democracy); Justina Abanida (African
Democratic Congress); Ndakwo Tanko (Action Democratic Party); Orugun Emmanuel
(Abundant Nigerian Renewal Party); Bello Yahaya (All Progressives Congress);
Ibrahim Sheikh (All Progressives Grand Alliance); Bello Dele (Grassroots
Development Party of Nigeria); Victor Akubo (Green Party of Nigeria);
Abdulmalik Adama (Hope Democratic Party), and Alfa Oboy of Justice Must Prevail
Party.
Others are; Jimoh Yusuf (Mass
Action Joint Alliance); Muhammed Dangana (National Conscience Party); Musa Wada
(Peoples Democratic Party); Ukwumonu Idachaba (Peoples Party of Nigeria); Moses
Drisu (Peoples Progressive Party); Ayodele Ajibola (Peoples Redemption Party);
Natasha Akpoti (Social Democratic Party); Abdulrazaq Emeje (United Democratic
Party); Abuh Omogami (United Progressives Party); Shuibu Seidi (Young
Democratic Party); Aisha Audu (Young Progressive Party), and Suleiman Mikhail
of Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).
Out of these 24, only about six
come to the consciousness of the voters, PremiumTimes spoke with. Their
profiles are, therefore, presented below in no particular order.
Governor Yahaya Bello (APC)
The incumbent governor of the
state, Yahaya Bello is well known to the game. He was a runner-up in the APC’s
primary in 2014, which produced the state’s first executive governor, Abubakar
Audu, as the ruling party’s candidate.
Following the emergence of Mr
Audu, GYB, as the governor is fondly called, had recoiled into his shell until
the sudden death of Mr Audu towards the conclusion of the election in 2015.
The declaration of the poll as
inconclusive by the electoral umpire had afforded Mr Bello a return to
reckoning as the party presented him as its replacement for the late Audu.
Mr Bello, born in 1975, is
currently Nigeria’s youngest governor, whose controversial entrance into the
leadership role was seen as a boost to the call for young people’s
participation in governance.
Born on June 18, 1975 in Okene,
formerly Kwara State, Mr Bello attended LGEA Primary School, Agassa, Okene LGA
in 1984 and moved to Agassa Community Secondary School, Anyava, Agassa-Okene
for secondary school education. He eventually obtained his senior school
certificates from Government Secondary School, Suleja, Niger State, in 1994.
Mr Bello bagged BSc. In
Accounting from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria, 1999 and returned for
Masters of Business Administration (MBA) in 2001, finishing in 2002.
He had his mandatory National
Youth Service Scheme (NYSC) at the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal
Commission (RMAFC), and became a chartered fellow of the Association of
National Accountants of Nigeria in 2004.
Mr Bello was retained by RMAFC
after his youth service and had risen from his position as Revenue Officer II
in 2002, to Assistant Chief Accountant, before leaving the agency.
Mr Bello soon ventured into
business through real estate management and stock brokerage. He also invested
in interstate transport service but this was reportedly shut down as soon as he
resumed office as governor.
Before he aspired to be the
governor of the state in 2015, he was the sole financier of Kogi Youth Arise Group,
which worked for the election of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Mr Bello, an Ebira, is from one
of the minority zones in the state, but being the incumbent governor, he
commands a huge crowd.
Natasha Akpoti (SDP)
Here is a 40-year-old woman,
Natasha Akpoti, who, if elected would not only rank Nigeria’s youngest governor
but also the first female to appear on the ballot and win governorship race.
Aisha Alhassan, popularly called
Mama Taraba, had tried to record the feat in 2015, but she was defeated by the
incumbent governor of Taraba State, Darius Ishiaku, in a keenly contested
election.
Ms Akpoti, a lawyer, is more
known for activism and social criticism than law. She came into limelight
through her quest for the revitalisation of Ajaokuta Steel Company, where her
parents had reportedly worked until its final collapse.
Like Governor Bello, Ms Akpoti is
from Okene Local Government Area in the North Central Senatorial District of
the state, but grew up in Ajaokuta where her father had practised Medicine
until his death about 20 years ago.
Ms Akpoti’s mother, a Russian,
had returned to her home country with her children following the death of her
husband, and so Ms Akpoti had had her tertiary education in Russia.
Upon her return to Nigeria, Ms
Akpoti began advocacy campaign for the revitalisation of the steel company,
which she noted, had been allowed to rot away due to bad leadership.
Popularised by her advocacy, Ms
Akpoti ran for Senate in the central senatorial district during the 2019
general election under the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and her popularity
had pitched her against the incumbent governor who supported Yakubu Oseni of
the APC.
After a prolonged battle, Mr
Oseni polled 76,120 votes while Ms Akpoti scored 48,336 coming second and
beating the then incumbent senator, Ahmed Ogembe, of the Peoples Democratic
Party (Nigeria), who came third with 19,359 votes.
The SDP candidate, who is the
founder of Builders Hub Impact Investment Programme (BHIIP), an
entrepreneurship innovation, is a threat to the aspiration of the incumbent
governor as she may split the vote of the central senatorial district which the
governor banks on.
Musa Wada (PDP)
The candidate of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) in the Saturday governorship election in Kogi, Musa Wada
is a PhD holder and an engineer.
The graduate of Building
Technology from ABU had another degree in Transport Management from Ogun State
University (now Olabisi Onabanjo University). He has a Postgraduate Diploma
(PGD) in Civil Engineering from the Federal University of Technology, Akure and
a doctorate degree in Environmental Science from the University of Calabar
(UNICAL), Cross River State.
Mr Wada, a younger brother to a
former governor of the state, Idris Wada, is also a son-in-law to former
two-term governor- Ibrahim Idris. He is an indigene of Odu in Dekina Local
Government Area in the state’s East Senatorial District.
He attended LGEA Primary School,
Okura-Olafia and Government Secondary School, Dekina, before proceeding to the
School of Basic Studies at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
A Fellow of the Nigerian
Institute of Shipping, Mr Wada belongs to many professional bodies including
the Nigerian Society of Engineers and Institute of Building, amongst others.
Mr Wada started his career at the
Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and rose through the ranks to become the Chief
Port Engineer, Tin-Can Island Port between 2004 and 2007. He was later
appointed, in 2015, the Managing Director, Seaview Properties Limited, a
subsidiary of NPA.
Apart from being an Igala, Mr
Wada is also from Dekina Local Government Area which has the largest voting
strength out of the state’s 21 local governments.
Mr Wada had defeated the older
Wada, and one of his brothers-in-law at the primary poll conducted by the PDP.
But while the senior Wada has reportedly declared his support for him, the same
has not been heard from his in-laws.
Aisha Audu (YPP)
Aisha Audu-Abubakar was Audu
Abubakar’s wife and the state’s first lady when her husband was the governor
under the platform of the defunct All Peoples Party (APP), which later
metamorphosed to the All Nigeria’s Peoples Party (ANPP).
The former first lady, also of
Igala ethnic race, just like her late husband from Kogi East senatorial
district, picked the Young Progressives Party’s ticket for the 2019
governorship race.
Mrs Audu is sometimes referred to
by her loyalists as a professor but we cannot independently confirm
the source of her newfound status.
The former first lady’s profile
has largely remained sketchy, and all that is made public about her is the
troubles she experienced in her matrimonial home in 2010 when she approached a
law court in the United States of America to seek refuge from what she regarded
as abuse and harassment by her husband.
Till the husband died, it was not
clear whether they ever reunited as she complained of a strained relationship
between her nuclear family and her stepchildren.
However, the “love for the
husband by the Igala people” is the major strength she is relying on in the
race to the Lugard House.
Dele Bello-Williams (GDPN)
Dele Bello-Williams, a lawyer
from Kabba, Kogi West Senatorial District is the candidate of the Grassroots
Development Party of Nigeria (GDPN).
The young man, who claimed to
have practised law outside Nigeria for the past 20 years, boasted in one of his
posts on Twitter that he has created solutions to socio-economic challenges
across the world.
According to Mr Bello-Williams,
he has been involved in international trade negotiations for Nigeria across the
globe, and so possesses the required international network required to turn
around the fortune of the mineral-rich Confluence state.
In 2014, he created the NIAS
Creative as a platform to enable young people to develop their ideas and
concepts within the creative and digital media sectors into multi-million
enterprises.
Mr Bello-Williams is a member of
the International Turnaround Association of the European Union and an
international trade lawyer, who has refused to either step down from the race
or endorse another party’s candidate.
The founder of the Premier UK
think-tank, National Institute for African Studies, which was established in
1999, has been moving from one local government to the other, and has boasted
of his readiness to win in a free and fair poll.
Justina Abanida (ADC)
Justina Abanida of the Okun
ethnic extraction from Yagba East, Kogi West Senatorial District, is not
strange to Kogi Politics.
Ms Abanida, a legal practitioner,
and one of the three women in the governorship race, was the Secretary to the
Kogi State Government during the administration of former Governor Audu.
She was also at a time the
state’s Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, and very recently, she
was appointed by Governor Bello as the chairman of the state’s Universal Basic
Education Board (SUBEB), before she was unceremoniously removed.
Ms Abanida emerged the candidate
of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for the Saturday election having defected
from the ruling party, following irreconcilable differences with the governor.
Ms Abanida, who is of the
Yoruba-speaking part of the state, is another candidate from the minority
region whose chances of winning the Saturday election is very narrow.
culled: PremiumTimes
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