Ahead of the November 16, 2019 governorship election in Kogi State, a group under the aegis of Citizens for Equity, Fairness and Justice has enjoined other Senatorial zones of the state to allow Western Senatorial District to produce the next governor of the state.
A chieftain of the group, Mohammed Abubakar, appealed to the Kogi East and Central zones, as a matter of equity and fairness, to support the candidates from the west for the plum governorship seat in the forthcoming election.
He noted that Kogi East has produced governors for almost 16 years while the central senatorial district is having its turn of four years, leaving the West as an orphan in the state it called her own.
He explained that Kogi is a miniature Nigeria, where political consideration is divided among three zones – North, West and South-South, saying there should be an adoptable modality for all the zones to have a shot at the governorship of the state.
Abubakar lamented that Kogi Western Senatorial zone is the only zone across the country that has yet to produce a governor for the state since 1999 that the nation’s democratic experiment began.
Abubakar added that if not because the larger Nigeria introduced zoning in its body polity, smaller ethnic tribes and zones wouldn’t have been able to produce the president, urging the political leadership of the state to, without delay, enshrine rotational arrangement in the polity.
He averred that the major criteria for the people aspiring to the office of the governor should be competence and not on the basis of population and stressed that the Western Zone had in abundance men and women of high capacity and credibility that could take the state out of its present underdevelopment.
He urged politicians to always consider all parts of the state as their place of birth, noting that Kogi west had contributed immensely to the development and sustenance of the state and should be considered to produce the next governor for the state.
According to him, “Under our constitution, marginalisation of any kind is illegal and immoral under God. The kind of people we are, our principles and our values should be determined by our adherence to fairness, equity and Justice.
“We cannot promote Unity, tolerance, peace, brotherhood and nationhood without enforcing these principles of equity, fairness, and justice. We should be conscious that we are equal before the law; hence, we urge our brothers from the other zones to allow Western Senatorial zone to produce the next
governor.”
