Kogi guber: Women group advocates power shift to Kogi West
• Adeyemi’s ticket, a waste, says former NUJ VP
AGROUP of women across the three senatorial districts of Kogi State has added its voice to the growing calls for power rotation to the Western Senatorial District.
The women, in their thousands, staged a road work in Lokoja, on Saturday, calling on political parties aspiring to take over from the Yayaha Bello- led administration in January 2024 to consider allowing Kogi West produce the next governor. Spokesperson of the group, Salamotu Danfulani, called on the state governor to put measures in place that would make it possible for Kogi West to produce the next governor.
Danfulani said that since the other two senatorial districts, Kogi East and Central, have spent 24 years governing the state, it’s only fair to allow the West, which has never had a taste of the governorship position, do so this time.
According to her, since the creation of the state 32 years ago, Kogi West has not been opportune to produce the governor.
“The state belongs to all of us; there is no part of the state that is inferior to the other. We must have equal rights. If the other two zones have had a shot at the governorship position, the West should also be allowed,” she stated.
MEANWHILE, a former Vice President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists ( NUJ), Zone D, Tims Ejigah, has described the lawmaker representing Kogi West Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Smart Adeyemi, as lacking capacity to win election for any political party.
Ejigah, who was one of Adeyemi’s closest allies during his days as NUJ President and all through the time he began his journey into national politics, disclosed that the senator had the habit of using and dumping those who assist him, adding that he had no positive records with NUJ during his two terms as president of the union.
The veteran journalist, who spoke to journalists in Lokoja at the NUJ secretariat, expressed surprise that Adeyemi had joined the Kogi governorship race, stressing that if elections were to be conducted and only journalists were to vote, over 80 per cent would vote against the senator.
According to him, he will only be wasting the ticket of any political party that makes the mistake of making him its candidate.
He said: “I am not God, but I say this based on Adeyemi’s antecedents of use and dump tactics.
“Coming to our profession, if Adeyemi wants journalists, serving, retired or veterans, as we call ourselves, to vote for him for anything, he cannot have majority votes. He cannot get majority of practicing members of the union to mobilise for any - thing he wants. And I am happy most of us have our Permanent V oter Cards ( PVCS).”
Recounting how Adeyemi emerged the NUJ president and how he allegedly cut ties with those that started the journey with him, Ejigah said: “I was one of the arrow heads of Adeyemi’s activism, which culminated in his emergence as the National President of NUJ.”