Author: admin50

By Sola Bamidele

It is no longer news that since return to democracy in 1999, Yagba Federal Constituency, 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 Senator Karimi Sunday Steve from Yagba West Council, Yagba Federal Constituency was elected 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, Senator Tunde Ogbeha from Kogi Lokoja/Kotonkarfe Federal Constituency represented Kogi West serving two terms of eight years between 1999 and 2007. He honourably bowed out to allow Kabba/Bunnu/Ijumu Federal Constituency have their turn in the Senate. This led to Senator Smart Adeyemi’s emergence in 2007, as Yagba elites agreed that it was Kabba/Bunu Ijumu’s turn to produce the Senate even to the detriment of an illustrous Yagba son, Hon. T. J Faniyi who was then in the race.

Unfortunately, rather than honouring the convention laid down by his predecessor, Smart Adeyemi unsuccessfully attempted re-election for a third term. This led to the victory of Senator Dino Melaye, a felow Ijumu man in 2015, and the subsequent interchange of the occupation of the seat between Melaye and Adeyemi, four years after.

To cut the long story short, Kabba/Bunu/ Ijumu held the Kogi West Senate seat for 16 years to the exclusion of Yagba and in disregard for 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 People’s Democratic Party fielded T.J Yusuf from Kabba as Senatorial Flagbearer, causing PDP a collasal loss at the 2023 National Assembly and Presidential Election, especially that a strong personality and time tested legislator like Hon. Sunday Steve Karimi was the flagbearer of the APC.

Summary of incumbent’s tenure

Since the 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 Senatorial District 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 N100m to 1000 indigenes of Kogi West who benefited N 100,000.00 each. As a strong aposltle of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, in 2025 he extended the Bursary programme to Kogi East and Kogi Central Senatorial Districts in order to help propagate the Renewed Hope message of Mr President across Kogi State. According to the senator’s media team, the final list of beneficiaries for the programme will soon be out for immediate disbursement. His commitment to education also includes th construction of classroom blocks in several communities in Kogi West Senatorial District such as in Odo Ape, Igbaruku, Ike Bunnu, Kabba, etcetera. In Kotonkarfe, Senator Karimi transformed a Secondary School to international standard by attracting Federal Government investment worth over a billion Naira.

Karimi has donated several Tranformers to Rural Communities, he has installed Solar Street lights in many rural areas and has his footprint in the 85 electoral wards in Kogi West, having installed and refurbished at least one solar motorised borehole in each of the wards in the seven local government areas 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 N2bn in the nation’s Appropriation Act and instead of Senator Karimi to channel the N2bn into small projects, with prospects of pecuniary advantage, he not only ensured his statutory N2bn was appropriated to augment the funding of Kabba-Ilorin Federal Road, he added additional N1bn as his special intervention for the road. An act that moved the Minister of Works to appropriate additional N6Bbn for the road in 2025 Approproation Act. As soon as the Federal Ministry of Works releases funds for 2025 Appropropriation, it is certain that the once abandoned highway will be repaired for the benefit of Kogites and other road users. In addition, Mr President has also approved alternative funding for the road, all due to the determimination of Senator Karimi.

Oversight Functions

The most important and crucial part of Senator 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 Upper Chamber with a motion to investigate the various turnaround maintenance contracts of Nigerian Refineries since 1999. He sponsored a Bill to amend the CBN Act to prohibit 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 the 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 judgment.

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 State Government dominance over Local Government Funds as it is a tool of impoverishing the people at the grassroots. This has pitched him against the political elites in Lugard House.

Senator Karimi’s sins attained a crescendo when he openly declared that it was the turn of Kogi West to produce Governor in 2027 since the Senatorial District has not been opportune to produce a Governor in Kogi State since its creation over 34 years ago.

The truth is, whether in the old Kwara or Kogi State, no native of Kogi West has ever been elected Governor. In old Kwara, Alhaji Adamu Attah, an Ebira, served as a Governor of Kwara State between 1979 and 1983.
Since 1999, when Kogi State was created, Kogi East has produced three elected Governors- Late Alhaji Abubakar Audu, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris and Captain Idirs Wada monopolising power for 16 unbroken years to the exclusion of other Districts.

In unusual circumstances, in 2015, Alhaji Yahya Adoza Bello from Agaza/ Ahachi ward 7 Okene became the Governor of Kogi State and ruled for eight years. In 2023 he appointed his brother from Upogoro Ward in the same Okene Local Government as his successor and is determined to ensure he rules Kogi State for another eight years, estimated to end in 2031, with concrete plans to retain power in Kogi Central or clandestinely handover to Ebiras 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 governments 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 the effornty and boldness of Karimi to speak the mind of his constituents and he has abelled him a “betrayer” and “arrogant ” and that he would be thought a lesson in the forthcoming National Assembly Election. 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 Sunday 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 Reps member Hon. Sam Aro or an over circulated Senator Smart 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!

Sola Bamidele writes from Abuja.

By Tunde Olusunle

I received an invite last December to join a delegation of elders and leaders from my sociocultural group, to visit the governor of my state. That the proposed meeting intended to discuss with the governor among others, the disturbing security situation in my district and the decrepit state of infrastructure thereof, appealed to me. I have said repeatedly in my writings, that road travel had been my preferred means of intra-country movement, before insecurity cast a pall on the nation’s land space. I’ve always been fortunate with the quality and comportment of my personal drivers and never had issues commuting by land from the nation’s capital to distances like Lagos, Ibadan, Ado-Ekiti, Ilorin, Lokoja, Port Harcourt, Yenagoa, Umuahia, Owerri, Enugu, Makurdi and so on. Indeed, those of us from Nigeria’s geopolitical “North Central” have limited travel options to our destinations in Benue, Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger and Plateau. The well-to-do accessing Kwara State can avail themselves of the international airport in Ilorin, but would still need to drive to major towns like Offa, Oro, Omu-Aran, Jebba, Lafiaji, Okuta, some of which are longer than three hours from the airport.

Contemporary security dynamics compelled me to consider security coverage for a trip to a state capital which once-upon-a-time was a predictable two-hour drive from Abuja. It is so very depressing to speak about the health of public infrastructure and security in the past tense within just a few years. As Director of Information and Public Affairs to the enigmatic “first and second” democratically elected governor of Kogi State, Prince Abubakar Audu, back in 1992, Abuja was the alternate playground of my friends and I whenever we were bored in Lokoja. We got into a Peugeot 504 Bestline, the much envied state car at the time, left the Kogi State capital at about 7pm, drove to the erstwhile Nicon Noga Hilton Hotel, (now Transcorp Hilton), had our fill of revelry and were back to Lokoja before office hours the next morning.

If we had any concerns at all, it was neither the condition of the road nor the fear of abduction. It was the concern about whether the driver, among we revellers who we designated for a particular leg of the trip, would not get drowsy on the wheels At times of such nostalgic thought, the titles of two classics, speedily flash on the screen of the mind. These are the American writer Karl Maeir’s book on Nigeria, This House Has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis, published in 2000, and our own pace-setting Chinua Achebe’s There was a Country released in 2012, just about six months before the demise of Africa’s most venerated master storyteller. All of these sound like very remote fiction when you share these reminiscences with the Gen Z generation.

I have had no need for security accompaniment for a while now, perhaps because most of my destinations are served by airports. The buildings some of us were coaxed to erect in our home communities decades back, have become museum pieces, no thanks to security paranoia and degenerate infrastructure. Back in the days, former Health Minister, Professor Eyitayo Lambo pioneered and sustained an annual healthcare visitation programme in my hometown. Medical professionals from the diaspora joined local volunteers for a one-week per year on-site encampment in our place to offer a broad range of medical services, including intricate surgeries. This attracted residents from adjoining communities who eagerly looked forward to every edition. No security coverage whatsoever was ever needed to transport the volunteers or to safeguard them in our community during the years the medical outreach lasted.

Those years, I happily allowed free use of my property by the volunteers, like many well-meaning members of the elite from our homestead. Indeed, I often travelled from Abuja and stayed around to support Prof Lambo and his wife, Dr (Mrs) Esther Lambo who poured themselves wholly and totally into the initiative. Lambo, an Emeritus Professor of Economics, committedly stayed through surgeries to ensure the procedures went right. Effectively, however, these country homes have become monuments to waste and conduits for recurrent resource drain. Indeed, to simulate human presence in my premises back home, I voluntarily ceded a section of the estate to senior personnel of a government department, which has occupied that part for nearly one decade now. This is how far we have come as a nation.

In the years I occasionally needed armed security escorts for my journeys, I interfaced specifically with the Nigeria Police Force, (NPF). Despite its challenges, it is an organisation which is rooted in tradition, whose standard operating procedures one is very familiar with. A formal application, detailing the specific purpose for which the police accompaniment is needed; the destination; duration of stay and the number of personnel required, is usually written. This is usually addressed to the officer with jurisdiction to give approval. This could be the Inspector-General of Police, (IGP); the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, (Operations), (DIG Ops), or the Commissioner of Police, (CP), as the case may be. The request is processed and the applicant is advised about the official allowances due to the escorts. My experience has always been that the applicant for police escorts provides a serviceable vehicle or vehicles to transport the team. It is as straightforward as that.

In the aftermath of the presidential directive withdrawing policemen from escort duties for very important personalities, (VIPs), last November and the concession of the responsibilities to the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, (NSCDC), I made inquiries so I could be assigned armed men to escort me to neighbouring Kogi State. It was supposed to be a one night trip, such that I would travel on a Thursday afternoon and return before dusk the next day. I was given a bill for one million naira broken down as follows:

Allowance for five armed men for two days at N50,000 each per day: N500,000.00

Fuelling of a Toyota Hilux truck and Service charge: N500,000.00

I was scandalised. So I needed to pay one million to a government-owned security department to be escorted to the capital of my state. Never in my decades of engagement with the police were my ears so badly assaulted. I gave up that trip.

I lost an uncle, Emeritus Professor Albert Anjorin last December and I desired to participate in his farewells which were scheduled for Kogi and Kwara states respectively. I would need to be on the road for about four days so once again I considered travelling with armed security. This time, I spoke with a different person in the NSCDC, expecting a different response from what I got in November. I would later receive a bill of two million, two hundred thousand naira, (N2,200,000.00), which was itemised as follows:

Allowance for five men at N50,000.00 per day for four days: N1,000,000.00

Service charge and vehicle: N1,200,000.00 (The VIP is to bear the cost of fuelling and maintenance of the vehicle in the course of the duration of the trip).

Of course I gave up on the Kogi State segment of my uncle’s final rites of passage and flew to Ilorin to participate in the Kwara State programmes.

Herein lies my dilemma, and the consternation of many Nigerians like me. The person who sent me the earlier bill of N1million which would have taken me to Lokoja and back, included a footnote to wit: The presidential directive on the withdrawal of policemen from VIP duties has already heightened the rate of requests. The implication here is that the decision to direct the culling of the police from dignitaries and the political class by the President at the height of the nation’s security crisis, was impulsive. There was no thinking through, especially from the perspective of almost commensurate replacement. That they are uniform-wearing and arms-bearing does not make the NSCDC equal substitutes for the police. There are differences in the focus, scope and depth of training for both services.

It is a measure of the aggregate quality of the training of our police force and their demonstrated capacity that they’ve almost always returned home with medals from many international operations they have participated in. There are of course the rotten eggs who extort helpless road users, profile innocent youngsters who spots a particular hairstyle or has a laptop or sophisticated mobile device as yahoo boys or herd unsuspecting citizens at gunpoint to teller machines to empty their bank accounts after violating the privacy of information stored in their electronic devices. There are those who murder their victims after stealing from them, ostensibly to conceal their crime. That fraction is not the police I’ve engaged with in several decades now.

Again, are the charges being imposed on those who request for the services of personnel of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, (NSCDC), officially approved and documented? Who determined that a non-commissioned civil defence personnel is entitled to a daily travel allowance of N50,000.00? What is a Director in the Federal Civil Service paid as night allowance? Are the so called “administrative charges” and “service charges,” receipted and paid to the treasury of the government? Aren’t the leadership and commanders of the NSCDC complicitly taking opportunistic advantage of the de-emphasis on the police for escort schedules, to exploit vulnerable Nigerians in a get-rich-quick scheme as part of pervading multisectoral corruption?

Despite controversies about participation in, and certification by the National Youth Service Corps, (NYSC), Nigeria’s Minister for Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, is one of the bright lights of the administration of President Bola Tinubu. He has instantiated fundamental digitised improvements in the quality and issuance time of the Nigerian international passport. He is encouraging literacy amongst Nigerian prisoners, giving them a new orientation to sustain educational self-improvement even while in the gulag, so that no periods of their lives will be totally lost. Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo must take an interest in the depressing racketeering going on in the NSCDC, many of which top brass deserve to be sacked for various cases of certificate forgery which are being swept aside. Our institutions must be governed by rational, relatable guidelines, not the whimsical, impulsive conjurations of morally duplicitous officials.

Tunde Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA), teaches Creative Writing at the University of Abuja

The Obidient Movement has insisted that the 2027 presidency should remain in the South, declaring that former Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, is best positioned to complete what it described as the region’s “remaining term.”

The National Coordinator of the Obidient Movement Worldwide, Dr Yunusa Tanko, made the position known in an exclusive interview with reporters, amid rising political realignments ahead of the 2027 general election.

Tanko’s declaration comes on the same day Obi’s running mate in the 2023 election, Datti Baba-Ahmed declared for the 2027 presidency at a rally held at the Labour Party’s national secretariat in Abuja on Wednesday.

Baba-Ahmed’s announcement comes barely one week after Obi announced his departure from the Labour Party for the African Democratic Congress.

This move has triggered intense debate over the party’s future and the direction of the wider opposition ahead of the next general election.

On Wednesday, Baba-Ahmed flanked by the embattled LP National Chairman, Julius Abure, said his aspiration was neither reactionary nor dependent on Obi’s political decisions, stressing that his presidential ambition predates the 2023 election.

Baba-Ahmed a northern Muslim downplayed religion and ethnicity, insisting that Nigeria’s constitution guarantees every qualified citizen the right to seek elective office.

However, Tanko, a close ally of Obi, while speaking with reporters, said the Obidient Movement was tired of being drawn into discussions suggesting that Obi should step aside or defer his ambition, stressing that the Obidients’ stance was rooted in democratic principles and equity.

“We are democrats. We believe it is the turn of the South and Obi will complete the remaining term of the South. That is our position,” he stated.

Tanko’s remarks come as opposition politics enters a tense phase, with multiple heavyweight contenders openly jostling for the ADC presidential ticket, raising questions about consensus, zoning and internal cohesion within the emerging opposition bloc.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar had on Tuesday vowed not to withdraw from the 2027 presidential race, dismissing calls for him to step down as dangerous to Nigeria’s democracy.

Atiku, who was the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 election and is now seeking the ADC ticket, made the declaration in a statement signed by his media aide, Paul Ibe, on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, at his formal declaration in Abuja on Wednesday, Datti-Baba reminded party members and supporters that his presidential ambition predated 2023 when he accepted to be Obi’s running mate.

He said, “I have made myself to contest for the office in 2027. I’m not following anybody’s trajectory or stepping into anybody’s shoes. Can I please remind you that before His Excellency Governor Peter Obi filed for the presidency, I aspired for the presidency before him? The records are there for you to see.”

The former lawmaker recalled his earlier attempt to secure his party’s presidential ticket, noting that he had contested in the Peoples Democratic Party primaries years before aligning with Obi in the Labour Party.

“In October 2018, I participated in the primaries of the then PDP in Port Harcourt and walked to Obi for his vote and he smiled at me. What a gentleman he was.

“If you heard me well in what I just submitted, I saw a rare opportunity for national unity to have elected Peter Obi in 2023. And that is why I decided to flow with it.”

Baba-Ahmed also addressed concerns about religion and ethnicity, insisting that Nigeria’s constitution guarantees every qualified citizen the right to seek elective office.

“Yes, I am a practising Muslim. But I’m a Nigerian and the constitution allows me to contest. You asked about my ethnicity. Yes, I am an Hausa man and Nigerian constitution also allows me to contest. I’m doing this because Nigeria needs help.”

However, Baba-Ahmed noted that while he had made his intention known, he would adhere strictly to party and electoral guidelines.

“As a law-abiding citizen and a loyal party member, until the timetable is released by INEC and the leadership of the Labour Party calls for interested aspirants, I will not say anything about it. But remember I told you that Nigerians know the truth,” he stated.

Reacting, the National Chairman of the Labour Party, Julius Abure, commended Baba-Ahmed for remaining in the party despite speculations that he might defect following Obi’s exit.

Abure said the development demonstrated that the Labour Party remained intact, adding that several key figures, including the Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, had also chosen to stay back.

He said, “Only recently, the Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, told the world that he joined the party before Peter Obi did – this is true. Otti also said he was not going to defect with Peter Obi.

“On the night Peter Obi defected, I received a telephone call from our vice-presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, Dr Datti Baba-Ahmed. He said he is not leaving the party because it was the platform upon which he, along with the former candidate, received 10 million votes from Nigerians, which was reduced to 6 million votes. We all know what happened.”

Abure further disclosed that Baba-Ahmed personally suggested a meeting of party leaders and members to reaffirm unity within the party.

“In fact, he asked me to organise an event where members can come together. He first suggested that we meet at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel with a few senior members that he would foot the bill.

“But I suggested that we hold the event here at the party secretariat and invite our members, artisans and ordinary people, who truly own the party, and he agreed. That is why we are having this gathering here today.

“The Labour Party is intact, we will not let Nigerians down. We will remain together and provide a genuine alternative for Nigerians.”

Baba-Ahmed’s declaration has added a fresh dimension to the emerging 2027 presidential contest, as parties begin early positioning amid shifting alliances within the opposition.

Punch