MONDAY COLUMN – Ododo’s Tribunal Victory, And The Triumph Of Kogi Agenda Over Tribal Politics
By Ozumi Abdul
In the reprehensible and murky water of politics often marred by controversy and contention, Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo’s recent triumph at the Kogi State governorship tribunal stands as a beacon of hope and justice. The ruling not only affirmed the people’s trust in the electoral process but also underscored the resilience of democracy in the face of adversity, and the legitimacy of his Kogi Agenda’s mantra.
It is a victory that in premonition we all saw coming for the governor without the needless hesitation to gaze the crystal ball or consult marabouts about the likely tribunal’s final judgment.
In fact, It’s that certain that even if the tribunal had sat in another planet, or replicated hundred times, despite the frenetic hysterias that at a point enveloped the APC’s camp, the judgment would still have gone the way of Ododo, because no matter how the Nigeria judicial system is denigrated today to be beggarly poor, there was no way 259,052 votes are going to be greater or more than that of 446, 237 votes.
That massive margin of 187,185 is humongously huge to upturn, and the SDP’s cry and hue about the alleged over-voting in the Central Senatorial District, the stronghold of the governor is a face-saving one to divert attentions from raw and naked tribal politics they exuded before, during and after the election.The voting patterns were influenced by tribal sentiments, as the SDP candidate, Alhaji Murtala Yakubu Ajaka won handsomely in his homeland of Eastern Senatorial District, with the exception of Bassa local government area, while Governor Ododo of the APC similarly garnered all the votes in his Central Senatorial District.
The Western Senatorial District, appeared then to be the neutral battle ground for the two closest rivals, and Ododo had a clean slate over the SDP’s Ajaka there, who couldn’t even secure the twenty-five percent required by the law outside his senatorial district, as against Ododo’s APC that had the twenty-five percent votes spread across board, and even nicked Bassa local government area, from his closest challenger, Ajaka’s backyard in the Eastern Senatorial District.
Ododo won thirteen out of the state’s twenty-one local government areas, while Ajaka won eight.
Then, with these available facts and figures in the public domain, and at everyone’s beck and call, how on earth do those whose rational reasonings and sense of judgment have been impaired with everything tribal aversion and irredentism, be accusing the tribunal judges of receiving six billion naira bribe from the APC and state government? How and why do they expect the SDP to win at the tribunal when the evidence of the petitioners was grossly insufficient, with a supreme court decision in a case by Tonye Cole against INEC?
In that case, the petitioner filed 305 witness depositions but only adopted 40 of them. The petitioner only adopted about 13.1 percent of the witness depositions. In this case, (the petition by the SDP and Ajaka), the depositions adopted represent just about 3.6 percent of their witness depositions. The petitioners only called 25 witnesses, in the mathematical calculation of evidence, 3.6 percent of Ajaka’s witness deposition adopted in the petition amounted to a failure.
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Again, the petitioners’ witness, who testified about the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) machines, stated that he could not guarantee whether those were the BVAS used, and out of the 25 witnesses called by the petitioners, there was no single polling unit agent among them. I again question the cynics and naysayers who are questioning the decision of the tribunal judges that affirmed the election of Ododo, on what ground do you think Ajaka and SDP should have been declared the winner of the last year by the tribunal? Abi you dey whyne, as street sensation, Habib Okikiola, popularly known as Portable would always query rhetorically in the Nigeria local parlance.
The judgment was apparently decipherable to not just the people within the state,but outside it. It lucidly shows that the election was a tango between conflicts of primordial ethnic agenda, also known as Igala Agenda, and a full fledged and overall Kogi Agenda.
They are two divides – while one divide (the Kogi Agenda) challenged and still challenging the change in status of Igala lengthy years of dominance, the other divide (Igala Agenda) wanted and still wants the stay of status quo, because to them they are “born to rule”, while others are their “slaves”, and for the fact that power had eluded them for eight years was an abominable one, not to talk of further four years in the wilderness of lack of power.
So, the tribunal proceedings were a battleground where truth clashed with deceit, where integrity faced off against corruption. But amidst the chaos, Ododo stood firm, armed with nothing but the truth and the unwavering support of those who believed in him and the Kogi Agenda. His legal team, led by some of the brightest minds in the profession, meticulously dismantled the web of lies spun by his adversaries, laying bare the naked truth for all to see.
But perhaps what truly captured the imagination of the nation was Ododo’s journey from obscurity to prominence.He had risen from humble beginnings, defying the odds stacked against him at every turn. His victory was not just a vindication of his own integrity but a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.
In fact, I’m sure Alhaji Murtala Ajaka himself already knew before the final tribunal’s verdict that he had no chance of usurping the current occupant of the Lugard House via the backdoor of courtroom(s), and attesting to this was his public declaration of not challenging the election result last year, a day after the election during his appearance on Channels TV’s “The 2023 Verdict” programme on Sunday night.
Ajaka’s words: “What am I going to court to do when the same INEC that did this is going to come as a witness to defend what they did? So it is a waste of time”.
Despite this his avowal declaration on the national TV, he still bowed and kowtowed to the ululation of tribal chauvinists, who went to town with caps in hands soliciting monies from market women, okada/keke napep riders, commercial drivers, and other menial job doers of Igala speaking extraction to sponsor Ajaka’s tribunal case, because in their chimerical deluded hallucination, if it’s not Igala man occupying that Lugard House, then no other tribe is worthy of its occupancy.
This is the ridiculous height they have taken their pseudo supremacy mentality to, while also unaware of the fact that the seeming political alliance and cooperation the Western and Central Senatorial Districts are currently striking would pose a serious challenge to the East in future elections, and humiliate it.
They forgot so easily that the pasture that was formally greenish and rich where fleshy cattles grazed can quickly turn barren, and one by one, politically, the fruits might desert the mother tree, and the mother tree turns firewood. Proverbially speaking, that’s how things can change abruptly in politics, hence the need for explicit caution.
Overall, Ododo’s victory should be seen as a pyrrhic one of no victor no vanquish, where the country’s budding democracy triumphed as well as Kogi State and its people.
In the interest of the development and progress of our dear state, it is high and right time every aggrieved person sheaths his sword, restrain from further distraction and obstruction of this government, so that it can deliver the needed dividends of democracy to the citizens.
May Kogi State succeeded.
Ozumi Abdul Fnipr ([email protected]) is a journalist, columnist, writer, fact-checker and public relations consultant.
