Kogi gov protests US visa ban on election riggers

Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello has written a protest letter to the US Ambassador to Nigeria over the visa ban its country placed on some individuals alleged to have compromised the 2019 governorship election in the state.

The US, had in a statement on Monday, said it had placed visa restriction on some individuals for their actions during the Kogi and Bayelsa governorship elections.

But Governor Bello, in the letter dated September 16, 2020 and signed by the Secretary to the State Government, Folashade Ayoade Arike, protested what he described as “atrocious misinformation” in the US statement and the time of releasing it.

“Let it be noted that we’re not challenging your visa bans in any way whoever they may affect and for how long, but we do register the strongest protest possible as a state to the collateral and unwarranted interference in our political and social processes which it represents.

”You have reignited already dying embers of discord around the February/March General Elections and the November 16 Kogi State gubernatorial elections of 2019. This has invariably made our usual post-election duty of reconciliation with fairminded political opponents all the more harder”, the governor said. He said the statement coming from the US after the Supreme Court had delivered four judgments affirming his election was an attempt to “taint” the judgment delivered by the apex court.