Kogi: Post election blues
On February 24, 2012 · In Politics
By Emmanuel Aziken
Given the determination of the one time candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Kogi State, Jibrin Isah to sustain his claim to the party’s mandate, supporters of the incumbent Governor, Capt. Idris Wada may have now decided to enter the fray.
Isah, popularly known as Echocho had emerged as the party’s candidate for the gubernatorial election earlier scheduled to hold in April 2011. However, the court judgment that extended the tenure of former Governor Ibrahim Idris and four other Governors inevitably altered the political permutations.
In that period Idris who had moved the political structures of the state to support Echocho had a rethink and recanted his support and threw his political machine behind Wada in the rerun primaries that was done ahead of the rescheduled election last December.
Supporters of Isa, however, have continued to protest what they allege to be the usurpation of their mandate and have sustained both political and judicial efforts to move Wada from the Government House. However, supporters of the Governor may have now decided to counter the widely popular Echocho.
The Kogi Destiny Defence Forum (KDDF) which is one of such groups to have risen in support of Governor Wada has charged Isah to adjust himself to the reality of a new administration led by Governor Wada and not to further distort the Supreme Court judgment on tenure as it affects the December gubernatorial election in the State.
“The position of the court is clear and coherent enough to any discerning mind. The apex court simply declined to give any consequential order while maintaining that a consequential order must instantly flow from an original judgment,” the group said in a statement issued by its President, ThankGod Onu and secretary, Comrade Kelvin Okah.
While expressing shock that Isa popularly known as Echocho was still referring to himself as the PDP flag bearer, the group said Isa automatically renounced whatever claim he had when he presented himself for screening for the re-run primaries.
“When on September 18, 2011 he travelled all the way to Lafia, in Nassarawa state to submit himself for screening, preparatory to the PDP primaries that later produced Wada as the party’s flag bearer.” The statement also added that Jibrin Isa contested the said primaries where he scored 1 vote.
“As hard as they labor to obfuscate issues, they cannot run away from the established fact that Jibrin Isa voluntarily went to the PDP headquarters in Abuja to collect a refund of N5million he deposited to buy nomination form to contest to contest the so-called January primaries.
That the said Echocho purchased a new expression of interest (EO) form, a new nomination form and submitted himself for screening, travelling all the way to Nassarawa state on September 18, 2011 for the exercise . The said Jibrin was also in Lokoja moving from one hotel to the other on the night of September 21 up to the wee hours of September 22 and went into the polls where he scored a single vote in an election that was televised,” the statement noted.” On claims by Isa that he would have won the election if it had taken place in April 2011 as originally scheduled, the group said:
“We daresay that in recent memory, our party has suffered defeat in some states simply because the candidates presented were either unpopular or had baggage which the electorate abhorred or inferior to candidates of other parties. It is obviously in realization of this that the PDP delegates in Kogi chose Idris Wada when INEC asked for nominations to conduct election into the office of the governor of the state.”
