LETTER TO COMRADE ADAMS OSHIOMOLE
By Hon. Musa Bakare
Dear sir,
NOVEMBER 2015 GUBERNATORIAL ELECTION,
APC MURDERED SLEEP IN KOGI STATE.
One cannot but deeply and with a sense of honesty sympathise with the very serious fact that you had been saddled with a very difficult responsibility of healing festering wounds in your party, the healing of which cannot come without a very deep sincerity, honesty and capcity.
I am not privy to the handover note Chief John Oyegun your predecessor handed down to you in the twilight of his exit as the chairman of the party neither am i asking to be availed. I am also not here to judge him neither am i here to sniff into his stewardship while he he presided, but if Kogi state is not mentioned in more than one paragraph as a state with a festering APC self inflicted yet very dangerous sore that the party must urgently and deeply seek the cure and clean up some terribly ugly scare, you may wish to invite him to accompany you into paying an immediate and indeed a very urgent visit to Kogi State and to the people of Kogi State to hear them out.
The people of Kogi today are in pains and are suffering my Comrade, and your emergence as the chairman sends some sweet tones of relief
Nigerians know you too well Comrade.
They know you as a man they hugely love, a man endowed with tremendous energy, brain, brawns and capacity.
Nigerians do not know you to be a pretender on issues bothering on human welfare management. As a labour leader you were tremendously loved by Nigerians and indeed Nigerian workers. As Governor of Edo state you were not only deeply adored by your Edo citizens but you were tremendously admired by Nigerians and citizens of the World far and near the borders of Edo state.
These, to say just a little is the much that Nigerians know of you comrade
Your ascension to the exalted position of chairman of the ruling party in Nigeria therefore ought to have been welcomed with great relief, nostalgia and expectations but belief me Comrade you came a little too late. Late in the sense that your party men and women had been inundated with assault to their sensibilities and left with little moral attachment and togetherness
What Chief John Oyegun bequeathed to you as a political party is an extremely battered, abused and thoroughly withered political party, completely different from what he was handed to midwife and nurtured into a pan Nigerian political party (political family) the dream of the founders of the party in just a little over four years ago.
May God grant you the Solomon's wisdom to pilot the party for the sake of Nigerians yet unborn
Under his watch, a political party that enjoyed almost a total national acceptability with a tremendous and an overwhelming goodwill traded away the opportunities within less than a year into its administration with the very shady, unwieldy and extremely untidy way the party handled the very first major challenge it faced, the November 2015 Gubernatorial election in Kogi state, which will continue to beat every sincere and honest imaginations both within Nigeria and beyond for a very long time to come
No one, Comrade had attempted to explain to the people of Kogi the intrigues that played out in some clear terms what attended the party's brazen throwing of cautions into the winds,behave like the people are not important and with an orgy celebration of impunity arrived at choosing to anoint someone who clearly and with an overwhelming evidence worked against her fortunes in the election, who was at that material time not a registered member of APC and also not a registered voter in Kogi State to replace the man who with his principal spent huge resources, expended great energy and time pulled together the people of the state like never before, that sacrificed all they had to ensure victory for the party as its candidate to stand election and contest in a concluded election that the umpires, the INEC adjudged inconclusive.
That election was clearly, overwhelmingly and convincingly concluded Comrade.
The entire World and not just Nigerian are fully aware of some of the ugly National hide and seek, miscarriages and pretences we indulged in here. No one however believed such could play out under an APC administration and indeed not in any ones imagination that it could happen when an upright man like President Muhammadu Buhari is in charge
With such a background, it is little wonder therefore that things had gone from bad to worse in the lives of the people since the party took over in Kogi State especially in terms of insecurity with the killings here and there, non payment of salary and gross impunity
That monumental injustice, unfairness and cheating meted out to Kogi citizens by declaring inconclusive an election that the entire World saw as concluded and the winner and losers already known, except of course INEC and the minister of justice is a monumental act of murdering sleep and as such, APC had since then being unable to sleep no matter how much it pretend.
The people of Kogi lined up in their numbers behind the winners of that election in the pursuit of justice from the election tribunal up to the Supreme court of the land.
They left the Supreme court with the belief that the party and not the courts dispensed the judgement they got.
As humans, members of APC in Kogi state and the entire Kogi people felt and rightly so Comrade, that the winner from the courts would be magnanimous in victory and call for some form of settlement. This unfortunately was never to be.
The Governor immediately after his emergence from Supreme court embarked on seeking a pound of flesh behaving like he was the aggrieved, take on vindictiveness as a way of approach and shunned every attempt at reconciliation.
Every right thinking people thought too that the chairman of the party Chief John Oyegun as the father of all members would summoned the winners and the losers in an attempt at assuaging frayed nerves in the interest of not just the moment but future elections
This was never to be and the people of Kogi state had been the major victim
The members of All Progressive Congress and its executives in Kogi State, elders and leaders of the party and indeed the people of the state, the goose that laid the proverbial golden egg, who worked for the fortunes of the party were sidelined and abandoned. In their stead, the members of Peoples Democratic Party that were abusing and insulting us while we toiled and worked in the rains and sunshine, day and night for the successes and so many others who were no where near Kogi state at the time of the campaigns and election were brought in to form the new Government of APC in Kogi State.
The endless staff screening embarked upon and the attendant non payment of workers salaries in Kogi state with lots of people loosing their jobs and some even died in the process, can only be said to be the citadel of all other errors in governance in a state where poverty was hitherto seen as the second name and who had thought your party will make the different.
Kogi people principally because of the love and confidence they had in President Muhammadu Buhari were consumed in the change mantra of APC and voted massively for the President and the party in the elections only to be allowed to wallow in misery, pains and suffering in place of some form of democracy dividend.
This clearly is a major pointer to the fact that the party indeed had murdered in that no value had been attached to the welfare and wellbeing of Kogi citizens.
I don't doubt your energy, astuteness capacity and resolve at frontally confronting issues and righting wrongs and your nerve for success comrade, i wish to advice that you listen more at this new dawn and be extremely slow to respond.
I wish you every Godly success on this job.
My regards to Madam !
