The Okun Leaders League (OLL) in Kogi State has disclosed that a meeting in Kabba, headquarters of Kabba-Bunu Local Government Area, will hold today (Friday) between the state governor, Alhaji Ahmed Ododo and the Okun Traditional Council to endorse the former for a second term in office.
Ododo, who is a year and nine months in office, is seeking a second term in office in 2027.
Sources told OLL that Okunland in Kogi West senatorial zone will be baited with the position of deputy governor on the Ododo ticket for the 2027 gubernatorial poll. ‘The aim is to effectively extinguish the aspirations of the good people of Okunland for the governorship office’, which has serially eluded them in the 34 year history of the state.
By 2027, the Igala ethnicity in Kogi East senatorial district would have held the office of the state governor for 16 years post-1999 when the Fourth Republic commenced, while the Ebira in Kogi Central would have held the same position for 12 years.
In the Second Republic in the old Kwara State, from where Kogi State was carved out on creation on 27 August 1991 with part of the old Benue State added, Alhaji Adamu Atta from Ebiraland in Kogi Central served as governor for four years between 1 October 1979 and 30 September 1983.
On October 1, 1983, he was succeeded by Chief Cornelius Adebayo, who defeated him at the poll. Adebayo (now Late) was from the section of the old Kwara State that is no longer part of Kogi State.
In the aborted Third Republic (27 January 1992 to 17 November 1993), Prince Abubakar Audu, an Igala from Kogi East district, served as the state governor. Audu returned as civilian governor at the onset of the Fourth Republic and served for four years from 1999.
He was succeeded in succession by politicians from Kogi East zone — Alhaji Ibrahim Idris (Igala) and Alhaji Idris Wada (Igala) — who both served for about 12 years.
When these figures are added, it sums up that while the Igala ethnic group of Kogi East has held the Office of Governor for 18 years, the Ebira of Kogi Central would have occupied the same office for 16 years by 2027, counting the reign in the old Kwara State with it.
In this leadership statistics in Kogi State, the Okun nationality, which is supposed to be the third leg of the sociopolitical tripod of the state, has been relegated. On two occasions between 1992 and 1993, and between 2012 and 2016, Okun sons served as deputy governors, while one of them, Chief Clarence Obafemi, who was Speaker of the state House of Assembly, constitutionally became acting governor when the then Governor Ibrahim Idris and his deputy, Philip Salawu were removed by the Supreme Court following electoral petitions. Obafemi’s tenure as acting governor lasted only two months with Idris restored to office on 5 April 2008.
OLL argued: ‘In Nigeria’s political system, we know too well that deputies are nothing but dispensable “spare tyres” who breathe and function at the sole discretion of their principals. They are toothless, powerless and incapable of bringing home the dividends of growth and progress which we all crave in a democracy’.
In the statement, signed by Group Captain Denja Mahmud (rtd.), representing Oworo, Lokoja, Canon Andrew Baiyekuhi (Kabba-Bunu), Mallam Qassim Yusuf (Ijumu), Dr. James Ogbondeminu (Mopamuro), Engr. Omobowale Palufe (Yagba East) and Chief Samuel Obaro (Yagba West), OLL called upon ‘our royal fathers to resist consenting to any arrangement calculated to hoodwink, cajole and undermine the collective intelligence of our people. Much as they are appointees of the state government, they are primarily custodians of our customs and traditions who are expected to be totally non-partisan and apolitical. Okun traditional rulers must reject anything and everything that will set them up against their people, irrespective of the level of material inducement or intimidation which has characterised godfather politics in Kogi State within the past decade.
‘Our numbers and support have been leveraged in the past to raise governors in Kogi State. Since the unbroken run of democratic rule in 1999, Kogi State has produced five governors and not one has been from Okunland. To borrow from the evergreen lyrics of the iconic reggae artist Bob Marley, “we’ve been trampled upon for far too long“.
‘Okun people reject any attempt to insult and patronise us with the position of deputy governor. We must warn that any individual or group of individuals who accept any denigrating office for self gratification, purportedly on behalf of the Okun nation straddling Lokoja, Kabba-Bunu, Ijumu, Mopamuro, Yagba East and Yagba West, does so at his or her own peril’.
