By Ebere Levi
The All Progressives Congress, APCÂ and Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi state have been celebrating his return for a second term.However, sources in Lokoja, the Kogi state capital, speak of gloomy faces on the streets.
Many in the state, it was gathered, are bemused at Bello’s return, insisting that if the election had been free and fair, the governor would not have scored up to 100,000 votes.
Bello defeated his Peoples Democratic Party, PDP challenger, Engineer Musa Wada, with 406,222 votes to emerge victorious. Musa got a paltry 189,704 votes.
INEC, Buhari, the Police Handed Bello Second Term
A cross section of the people in the state are blaming the Independent Electoral Commission, INEC, the Nigerian police and President Muhammadu Buhari for Bello’s return.
According to Abdulrahman Tijani, an unemployed graduate, who operates a taxi in Lokoja, Bello’s victory spells doom for Kogi.
Tijani: “It is disheartening that a man who terrorises perceived opponents, pauperises and dehumanises Kogi workers by denying them their salaries and pensions has been rigged to power for second term by those who do not know the pains we suffer here.
“Certainly, the N10 billion released to the governor two days to the election was used to buy votes, compromise INEC officials and police who then feigned helplessness while Bello’s thugs had a free reign terrorising voters, snatching ballot papers and stuffing ballot boxes with pre- thumbed printed ballots.
History will never be kind to the INEC Chairman , Professor Mahood Yakubu, for presiding over this sham election and validating it with the announcement of Bello as winner”
Election Day as a Market Day
Buying and selling of votes characterised the November 16, 2019 Kogi election. Eyewitnesses insist the buying was done by Bello/ APC agents openly.
An eyewitness who was also an election observer noted: “Dollars were discreetly handed over to polished voters after casting their votes but, must produce certain evidence to show they voted for the APC.
For market women and artisans, it was a rain of N1,000 and N500 denominations, openly dispensed to them after casting their votes and producing the coded evidence of having voted for the APC and Bello”
Wada Rejects Result
The PDP candidate has out- rightly rejected the result of the election, saying it was not the true reflection of the people of Kogi.
Wada who rejected Bello’s victory, even before the formal announcement, accused the police of tear-gassing voters-allegedly, his supporters- with helicopter. Wada alleged the force aided Bello in the rigging spree.
He vowed to approach the court to upturn governor’s victory.
Why APC Stuck with Bello
Party sources explain that the initial plan by the national leadership of the APC was to give Bello the Ambode treatment by denying him a second term ticket in view of his alleged disastrous first term performance.
However, the magazine was informed that the presidency later realised that it will also be tarred with the same brush with which Bello was tarred if Nigerians are told the reason for denying him the ticket was anchored on maladministration.
“The party knew, and the Presidency knew too that Bello did not perform. When El Rufai knelt down to beg Kogi people to forgive Bello, and Aisha Buhari, the First Lady also made a passionate plea to Kogites to forgive him too, they were not doing it for fun; they knew their party man was a total failure in his first term.
The ticket was to be given to another person but there was a last minute change of mind, largely borne out of self preservation.
You see, you can not publicly tag a governor elected on APC platform as a non-performer, and then expect people not to also say the same thing about the President”, an APC leader told The source.
According to him, “when the decision to allow Bello a second term ticket was taken, it was also resolved that federal might would be deployed to get him victory.
Of course, it is an open secret that if it was an equal contest, Governor Bello would have been beaten silly by PDP’s Wada.”
