Kogi guber poll: Akpoti’s ambition, Bello’s headache

By YUSUF MOHAMMED

Natasha Akpoti has been dubbed as “fearless” and “courageous” by many, for venturing into politics. Not just any politics, but Kogi State politics which has been tagged as “the most dangerous” and “challenging” by many political analysts. In an arena dominated by men, this young woman is making her mark. Akpoti is a force to be reckoned with as far as Kogi Central Senatorial District is concerned. She showed how serious a contender she was during the 2019 general election.

She was the candidate of the Social Democratic Party, (SDP) in the senatorial race. Her main opponents were Senator Ahmed Ogembe of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP and Yakubu Oseni, candidate of the All Progressives Congress APC.

Prior to the election, there was a lot of violence in the state. Many of her supporters were killed allegedly by thugs associated with the ruling APC. She pointed accusing fingers at Governor Yahaya Bello of the state because she claimed that he had threatened her to drop her ambition of becoming senator or “face the consequences.”

She said Governor Bello wanted to “assassinate” her. She stated this in a letter addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari entitled ‘Governor Yahaya Bello wants to kill me.’ According to Akpoti, the reason the governor tried to assassinate her was that she “dared to step out to give expression to my ambition to represent my Senatorial zone in this election.” She urged the President to call Governor Bello to order, as many of her supporters had been killed.

Part of the statement read: “In only a few weeks that my campaign gained momentum morphing into a movement for the liberalization of Kogi Central, some of my other supporters that have been murdered are Mr. Ojo Enesi, Youth leader of my Campaign Organization in Obeiba, Ihima of Okehi Local Government Area in Kogi state. He was dragged out of his house at about 12:30am on the night of Saturday, the 12th of January by thugs who pulled the trigger on late Enesi.”

In the end, she lost to Mr Yakubu Oseni who had 76,120 votes. Akpoti came second by having 48,326 votes. She was able to defeat the incumbent senator then, Ahmed Ogembe of the PDP who had 19,359 votes. Despite the voter intimidation, she came second and even defeated the senator on seat. That was when political analysts took her more seriously. Politicians and observers realized that she is a force to be reckoned with.

Today, she is the governorship candidate of the SDP. She emerged candidate in a primary that was not limited to Kogi Central aspirants alone. It had to do with aspirants across the three senatorial districts of the state. Well, there was no contest at the primary officially because the other aspirants stepped down for her before the election.

The INEC returning officer said, “After polling a total of 751 votes she emerge winner in an election in which she was the only candidate.

According to a reliable source, Akpoti’s emergence as SDP governorship candidate has been giving Bello and his supporters’ sleepless nights. A member of the APC and a supporter of Bello from Kogi Central who pleaded anonymity said, “We never expected that she would vie for governor. This is just to share votes with the governor. It is sad because I expected the governor to have aligned with her knowing that she is from the same area with him.”

Alhaji Gufrun Adeiza from Kogi Central who is a chieftain of the APC from Ebira land told Business Hallmark in a telephone chat that, the governor has made a big mistake by “fighting everyone.” He said, “It is too late to make amends. The governor took his enmity with her too far. The violence in the last election should show you that there is no love lost between the two of them.”

Bello’s headache right now is that the PDP’s candidate, which is the main opposition to the APC, is Musa Wada. Wada is Igala from Kogi East senatorial district which has nine Local Government Areas out of 21 in the state.

His is from the majority ethnic group. Ebira comes second in terms of local government areas and population. BusinessHallmark has gathered that people from Igala land mean business this time around. Apart from Bello’s “poor performance” they feel they have been marginalized by the APC government and they are not ready to vote Bello.

Enejo Shuaibu a political analysts from Kogi East said “We have nothing. The Speaker of the state House of Assembly is from Kogi Central, the Chief Justice of the state is from Kogi West. The APC chairman is from Kogi Central. The governor is from Kogi Central. Even the minister appointed from Kogi State is from the western part of the state. There is no one from Kogi East occupying any key position. The APC is clearly anti-Kogi East (Igala).”

“Bello, who should be getting massive support from Ebira land and Okun land, is fighting almost everyone. The people of Kogi state across board decided to give him a chance as soon as he became governor. But a few years down the road, he burnt bridges. People from the West and East are angry with him. The Central part of the state where he should be getting the major support is also shaky because of his attitude towards them. To make matters worse, he fell out with one of the darlings of Ebira land, Natasha Akpoti who is also in the race for Lugard House”.

What has endeared Akpoti to the people is her consistent advocacy for social and infrastructural development in the state. She has backed her words with actions by empowering hundreds of people in the state. They also love her because of her advocacy for the resuscitation of Ajaokuta steel. Since 2015 till date, she has been at the fore-front of the advocacy for the revival of the Ajaokuta Steel Company.

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Due to the aggressive and resilient manner she has been advocating for the betterment of Ajaokuta and her people, she was termed “disruptive” and later nicknamed “Queen of Steel.”

In her words, “Every government has business in doing business especially in major sectors which affects the national security with regards to job creation and defining foreign trade policies. It is wrong for a government to rely on privatization as an escape route for its inefficiencies. If the problem is the civil service, then there should be an overhaul because there are many smart and hardworking Nigerians both at home and in diaspora who can understudy the technology for a short period of years under TPE’s tutelage and operate henceforth as a solely Nigerian owned public enterprise.”

Many of her opponents tried to discredit her advocacy as one sponsored to sabotage President Buhari’s government. Natasha refuted by saying “I never received a penny from no one; neither did I settle for promises in kind to malign everyone connected to the Ajaokuta’s conspiracy. All I did was out of sheer patriotism and love for my country, Nigeria.”

If Natasha Akpoti’s outing in the 2019 general election is anything to go by, then she would give Governor Yahaya Bello a run for his money for votes in Kogi Central Senatorial District, in the November 16 governorship election in Kogi State.