Kogi: Politicians defecting to APC at eleventh hour are doing ‘brisk business’, to scam Bello, should swear to a shrine before given money

By Samson Atekojo Usman

It is unthinkable to state that some politicians are defecting to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC to work for the governorship candidate of the party, Ododo Usman Ahmed ahead of November 11, election against the good consciences of any mortal man given the collapse of democratic structure and brute life in barely eight years of Yahaya Bello’s administration.

What further nailed APC in the gallows was the throw-up of Ododo by the governor as the governorship candidate for the vexed reason that Ododo is a cousin to him, thereby making the political atmosphere of the State tardy. Ododo’s emergence did not only portray Bello’s third term agenda, but manifested political fiefdom and reflected other citizens as vassals of his empire in the 21st century politics.

The APC candidate in the November 11, election was part of the system that railroaded the state into coma where there was nothing to desire of the state, first as the former Auditor General of the State, Ododo misadvised the governor on the wages and welfare of civil servants in the State and recommended percentage payment.

The tragic percentage salary paid to workers since the beginning of Bello’s administration was borne out of Ododo’s brainbox, this, one tends to wonder, if anything good can come out of the man behind the travail of Kogi workers.

Training and retraining of civil servants was completely none existent in the State in past years of Yahaya Bello’s administration, while tribal sentiments underscored the sack of workers with pensioners languishing without payment of their pension and gratuity. The anachronistic policies have kept resources of the state circulating within a family clan which could be inferred from the revelation that was oozed out by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC recently.

As the opportunity for Kogites to decide another leader beckons, what is governor Bello going to leave behind in the Lugard House that he wanted his cousin to preserve it for him? At worst why not other Ebira folks from other Local Government in the Central Senatorial district?

It calls for suspicion or something close to surreptiousness for some tar brush politicians, who have lost touch with the grassroot to indicate their defection to the APC as it were, in Kogi in order to support Ododo that failure is staring him on the face.

Those are damn broke politicians that Bello deliberately denied them their entitlements after serving the State in previous administrations. They got starved and having frittered away the wealth acquired after office and due to hardship, they have thrown away their sense of reasoning only to succumb to the cowards alternative.

This is obvious that they are out for a “brisk business” by looking for cheap money to grab, having discovered that the governor is under pressure and desperately looking for a way to harvest people of easy virtues to rescue his cousin on November 11.

Before coming out in the open to defect they have planned how to scam the governor and having Nicodemously visited the governor at nights in past weeks to discuss defection, they were told to defect openly for the public to see them.

“Ceteris pari bus”, those are gold diggers who focused on election mobilization fund in the eve of the exercise to see what to selfishly cart away without thinking of the interest of the suffering Kogi brothers and sisters. They are the category of political feather weight who cannot influence their polling units even as they feigned ignorance of the political revolution going on in the state to rescue the state from the claws of a lion and recalibrate the political hemisphere.

Be it may, that, everyone is at liberty to join a political party of choice, the prevailing circumstances in Kogi State calls for alliance against the party in power – APC. Therefore, if truly those who are defecting at the eleventh hour are sincere, let them be given a shrine to swear before they are offered money to go and work for Ododo.

If I were the governor, I will repent and apologise to the people of Kogi State for plunging them into hardship, recalled workers unjustly sacked and pay arrears of percentage salaries for the past seven years, instead of falling prey to the antics of the so-called politicians who pretended to have capacity to deliver Ododo.

Samson Atekojo Usman is a journalist, publisher and political affairs analyst