By Yahaya Idris Toto
For one full year, Omoluabi, a son of Kogi West himself, traversed the East, West and Central senatorial districts on a self-imposed mission to enlist support for power to rotate in Kogi West.
He met critical stakeholders, community organizations, captains of industry, traditional rulers and community leaders. He preached equity, fairness and the need for power to rotate for equity, fairnessand inclusion. A fair deal !
The sacrifice was rare. The commitment looked genuine. But the mission was compromised from the start. Omoluabi allowed himself to be used as the vessel to silence the agitation he claimed to champion. His one year tour was not to secure Lugard House for the West in 2027, but to wane the energy of our struggle and bolster Governor Ododo’s confidence for a second term bid.
His assignment was clear to his sponsors, but Omoluabi exposed his own gullibility on the altar of our collective aspiration, an aspiration that has been sidelined each time the West makes a bold attempt to take a shot at Lugard House.
He either deliberately ignored our finest moment to wrestle power in 2027 or he simply pretended that the road was too long for the West and chose to follow the money.
The Kogi Unity Accord tour and its summit exposed the intention and the people behind the mask. The agenda was simple and predetermined. After months of deceiving our people, the summit closed with the loudest call to endorse Ododo for a second term and to tell Kogi West to wait again till 2031.
This is what Omoluabi’s one year tour has delivered to his own people, our own brother championing our continued exclusion.
But on the flip side, we thank Omoluabi. Unknowingly to him, his tour has resurrected our agitation across the 21 LGAs and galvanized fresh support for the West to occupy Lugard House to retool Kogi State for unity and shared prosperity.
We see through the charade. We know Omoluabi and his co-travellers have chosen to derail the West’s collective aspiration to line their own pockets with dollars.
We, the stakeholders of Kogi West, vehemently reject the predetermined conclusions of this compromised summit. We reject the endorsement of Ododo for a second term.
Kogi West will challenge Ododo in the 2027 governorship race.
In all, the so called summit berthed on a predictable end. Its was a communique foretold. Let me not say it was a fraud. It isn’t a reflection of the preponderance of the views of the people as expressed in the various memoranda presented.
This is not altogether unexpected having been sponsored by the government of the day whose tenure it seeks to perpetuate via stealth.
It is for this and numerous other reasons that the said communique is dead on arrival. It is not worth the piece of paper on which it was written.
We therefore reject it unequivocally and reiterate that it is the turn of Kogi west senatorial district to produce the next governor come 2027. We ask for no more and seek no less!
