It is no longer news that since return to democracy in 1999, Yagba, one of the three federal constituencies in Kogi West Senatorial district, had been excluded from the rotation of the Senate seat of the zone until 2023 when miraculously Sunday Steve Karimi from Yagba West Local Government Area (LGA) was elected Senator on the platform of the All Progressive Congress (APC).
Dynamics of rotation within Kogi West Senatorial district
Between 1999 and 2007, ex-Military Administrator of Edo and Akwa Ibom States, Tunde Ogbeha from Kogi Lokoja/Kotonkarfe Federal Constituency represented Kogi West Senatorial district serving two terms from 1999 and 2007. He honourably bowed out to allow Kabba/Bunu/Ijumu Federal Constituency have its turn. This led to Smart Adeyemi’s emergence in 2007 as Yagba elites agreeing that it was that federal constituency’s turn to produce the Senator even at the detriment of an illustrous Yagba son, Hon. Tolorujuwon Faniyi.
Unfortunately, rather than honouring the convention laid down by his predecessor, Adeyemi unsuccessfully attempted re-election for a third term. This led to the victory of Dino Melaye, a fellow Ijumu man in 2015, and the subsequent interchange of the occupation of the seat between Melaye and Adeyemi, four years after.
Kabba/Bunu/ Ijumu, therefore, held the Kogi West senatorial seat for 16 years to the exclusion of Yagba and in disregard for the time-tested convention of rotation.
By 2023, the agitation for Yagba producing the Senate hit the high heavens, but in defiance to the yearnings of the majority, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) fielded Tajudeen Yusuf from Kabba as senatorial flagbearer, causing the party a collasal loss at the National Assembly and presidential elections, especially that a strong personality and time tested legislator like Karimi was the flagbearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Summary of incumbent’s tenure
Since his assumption of Office, Karimi has endeared himself to the heart of the ruling elites in the Senate and has often spoken the minds of his constituents.
He envisioned that the insecurity in the Northern part of the country was creeping into Kogi West and immediately committed his personal resources worth hundreds of millions to construct, equip, furnish and provide two brand new operational vehicles for the Nigerian Army when he established the Nigerian Army Forward Operation Base in Egbe.
In addition, Karimi prioritised education by launching an annual bursary for constituents. In 2023, he dolled out N100 million to 1,000 indigenes of Kogi West, who got N100,000 each. As a strong aposltle of President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda he extended the bursary programme to Kogi East and Kogi Central Senatorial districts in 2025. According to the senator’s media team, the final list of beneficiaries for the programme would soon be released for immediate disbursement.
His commitment to education also includes the construction of classroom blocks in several communities in Kogi West such as in Odo Ape, Igbaruku, Ike Bunu and Kabba, among other places.
In Kotonkarfe, Karimi transformed a secondary school to international standards by attracting Federal Government investment worth over a billion Naira.
He has donated several tranformers to rural communities and installed solar street lights, and has his footprint in the 85 electoral wards in the zone, having installed and refurbished at least one solar motorised borehole in each of the wards in the seven LGAs within his first two years in office.
No festive period passed without seven trailer loads of rice, hitting the grassroots courtesy of the senator, and he regularly intervenes in community development efforts by donating handsomely as the occasion demands.
In a rare sacrifice for the abandoned Kabba-Mopa-Isanlu-Egbe-Ilorin Road. In 2025, President Tinubu permitted each senator to a capital project of N2 billion in the Appropriation Act in 2025. And instead of Karimi channelling the N2 billion into small projects, with prospects of pecuniary advantage, he deployed his statutory appropriation to augment the funding of Kabba-Ilorin federal road. He also added additional N1 billion as his special intervention for the road, an act that moved the Minister of Works, Senator Dave Umahi to appropriate additional N6 billion for the road in 2025 Approproation Act. As soon as the Federal Ministry of Works releases the funds for 2025 Appropropriation, it is certain that the once abandoned highway will be repaired for the benefit of Kogi residents and other road users.
In addition, the President approved alternative funding for the road, all due to Karimi’s determimination.
Oversight functions
The most important and crucial part of Karimi’s oversight functions are his legislative instruments on the floor of the Senate, which are in excess of 12 bills and 15 motions.
Karimi commenced representation in the Senate with a motion to investigate the various turnaround maintenance contracts of the refineries since 1999. He sponsored a bill to amend the Central Bank of Nigeria Act to prohibit the use of foreign currency in domestic transactions in a bid to restore the value of the Naira and made significant contributions to Electoral Act.
Frustrated about incessant insecurity, he sponsored a bill to allow states that are willing and financially stable to operate a sub-national police to establish state police. He also sponsored amendments to the Constitution to ensure local government autonomy in tandem with the recent Supreme Court judgement.
The voice of the voiceless
Karimi is an unrepentant advocate of good governance and devolution of power and resources to the grassroots. He has criticised the state government dominance over local council funds as it is a tool of impoverishing the people at the grassroots. This has pitched him against the political elites in Lugard House (Kogi State Government House).
Karimi’s sins attained a crescendo when he openly declared that it was the turn of Kogi West to produce the governor in 2027 since the district has not been opportune to produce a governor since the state’s creation over 34 years ago.
Whether in the old Kwara or Kogi State, no native of Kogi West has ever been elected governor. In the old Kwara State, Alhaji Adamu Attah (an Ebira) served as a governor between 1979 and 1983.
Since this Fourth Republic, Kogi East has produced three elected governors: Alhaji Abubakar Audu, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris and Captain Idirs Wada (rtd.) monopolising power for 16 unbroken years to the exclusion of other districts.
Following the death of Audu, who was heading to victory while the 2015 governorship election results were being announced, the first runner-up in APC primary, Alhaji Yahaya Bello from Agaza/Ahachi ward 7 Okene became the governor. He ruled for eight years.
In 2023, he anointed his kinsman from Upogoro ward in the same Okene LGA as his successor and is determined to ensure he rules the state for another eight years, estimated to end in 2031, with concrete plans to retain power in Kogi Central or clandestinely handover to Ebira, who are domiciled in another senatorial district.
Karimi’s major offence is voicing the aspirations of his people as follows:
(a) That Kogi West should be considered in the gubernatorial seat of Kogi State;
(b) That local councils should be given full financial autonomy so that poverty and insecurity at the grassroots can be wiped out.
The political elites at Lugard House are angerred at Karimi’s effornty and boldness to speak the mind of his constituents. They have labelled him a ‘betrayer’ and ‘arrogant’ and that he would be taught a lesson in the forthcoming National Assembly elections. And, for two years, the powers that be at Lugard House have desperately and openly shopped for a replacement for him, narrowing down to old political foes as instruments to bring down the people’s Karimi.
It is the calculation of Lugard House and its Emperor that any other person other than Karimi is best to represent the senatorial district. Because, according to them, Kogi West does not need a ‘voice’ at the state or national level.
They prefer a former one-term member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Sam Aro or an over circulated Adeyemi to challenge him. There are also indication that the rulers at Lugard House have vowed to raise as many sons of Yagba and Okun as possible to join the ring for the Senate in 2027, to pave the way for an opportunist from Lokoja/Kogi Federal Constituency to emerge as the APC flagbearer or winner of the 2027 Senate election in Kogi West senatorial district, thereby cutting short the eight-year/ two-term of Yagba at the Senate.
Caution
It will be unwise for Yagba to allow outsiders who have failed in their own senatorial elections or who are unable to elect a Senator for themselves to choose a Senator for Kogi West. Yagba should not allow outsiders to use divide and rule to perpetuate themselves in power simply to subdue Yagba. In the words of Hubert Ogunde, Yoruba ronu. My advice, Yagba ronu ooo!
Bamidele writes from Abuja
