What has Yahaya Bello done in Kogi? By Jesutega Onokpasa
Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, having already debunked the myth of the electoral invincibility of Kogi East by uniting a critical mass of Kogi Central and Kogi West behind him, the only hope for the opposition of defeating the Ododo/Joel ticket of the All Progressives Congress, APC, was for Kogi East to have conceded the governorship slot to Kogi West and united a critical mass of both senatorial districts behind that candidate.
Even at that, it would still have been a tall order defeating Usman Ododo but, at least, there might have been a ray of hope for them.
On his part, the Social Democratic Party, SDP, candidate, Muritala Ajaka, preferred, instead, to harken to the permutations of a bygone era, expecting voters in his senatorial zone, Kogi East, to coalesce around him, hoping he could get additional votes from Kogi West which he figured would vote against the APC for not giving its ticket to one of their own, or that, at any rate, with his native Kogi East behind him, he could go it alone.
Unfortunately for him, Kogi West wasn’t interested in going back to the era of seemingly unending dominance by one of three senatorial districts.
Additionally, their own top candidate, Dino Melaye of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, was never their preferred man, so enough of them still ended up voting for the Ododo/Joel ticket that Governor Bello had cobbled together.
I don’t know if Muritala Ajaka will go to court but I would exhort him to congratulate his erstwhile fellow party man, Governor-elect Usman Ododo, and be open to a rapprochement with him for the good of their state.
As for Yahaya Bello, if how he became Governor of Kogi State, or, indeed, how he successfully returned for a second term, was not already impressive enough as a lesson in political strategizing, this latest achievement is a masterclass amongst masterclasses.
-Onokpasa, a lawyer, was a member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Campaign Council, and writes from Abuja
