Kogi west should produce next gov – Faleke

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Kogi west should produce next gov – Faleke

The lawmaker representing Ikeja Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, James Faleke, has appealed to Governor Yahaya Bello to allow Kogi West to produce his successor ahead of the November 22 governorship election.

Faleke, who is the Chairman, House Committee on Finance, and Secretary for the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, made the appeal in a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday.

The race for Bello’s successor gathered momentum in January when the governor’s Chief of Staff, Abdulkareem Asuku; Auditor General of the state, Ahmed Ododo; and Commissioner for Local Government and chieftaincy affairs, Salami Ozigi-Deedat, paid N50m to pick up their nomination and expression of interest forms at the APC national secretariat in Abuja.

Other aspirants for the race, apart from Faleke, include Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Murtala Ajaka, and the senator representing Kogi West, Smart Adeyemi.

Faleke said, “For equity, justice and fairness, it is only reasonable to lend my voice to the call by many that our great party, the All Progressives Congress, should ensure the candidate for the governorship election emerge democratically from Kogi West. For a heterogeneous state such as Kogi, giving all parts of the state a sense of belonging is key to peaceful coexistence among the several ethnic groups in the state.

“For more than 16 years, our brothers from the Eastern Senatorial District held sway in Lugard House through the late Abubakar Audu, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris, and Captain Idris Wada. Kogi Central by the end of the tenure of Alhaji Yahaya Bello would have been in the saddle for eight years, uninterrupted. While not discounting the right of those concerned to contest for any office, I believe that the time has come to be just and fair to all.

“The clamour for power shift pre-2015 by Kogi West and Kogi Central was to correct the marginalisation of the two districts in the governorship seat. My position is not premised on any sense of entitlement but on the ideals of equity and fairness which the late Abubakar Audu preached before his untimely death. The victory of our great party, APC in 2015, especially in Kogi West was the avowed commitment of the late Abubakar Audu to ensure power shifts to other parts of the state.”