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| Governor Yahaya Bello |
A Kogi State governorship aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Prince Mustapha Mona Audu, has said that Governor Yahaya Bello has failed to provide democrat dividends to the people because he was not voted for.
Audu also said Bello was not representing youths because he has misused the opportunity of representing them.
He added that returning the governor to power would amount to mortgaging the political future of the Nigerian youths.
The younger Audu told The Nation in an interview in Abuja that since the governor came into office by an act of providence, he never understood what the mandate he held meant.
The aspirant said Bello had misused his opportunity and should therefore be replaced.
He said: “Yes, the current governor is a young man, but he is not our representative. No one said men cannot rule. It is unfair to say he is a representative of the youth because no young person selected him as our representative. No Kogite voted for him. There is no single Kogite alive or dead that voted for the current governor.
“The governor accidentally, through an act of God, made it there. Unfortunately, because he did not understand what was needed to get there and was not part of the people who brought this victory, he misused the opportunity.
“He got rid of all the people that worked for it. In life, there is a simple rule. If you don’t work for something, you don’t know the value of it. This is exactly what happened. He didn’t work for it and so, he does not understand the value.
“Now, the young had gathered together and picked one person and we know that Kogi State is our last chance. If you don’t get it right in Kogi State, the door will forever be shut against us because they are going to use Kogi State as an example of why young people shouldn’t be in leadership. If you talk about young people in government, people will tell you, look at Kogi State.
“Something as basic as salaries, he has not paid for over 40 months. But this is not a consequence of being young, but the function of somebody who is not prepared for leadership and we are ready to change him. We are going to change him very soon.”
He said he was not worried about whatever mode of primary the party decides to adopt for the governorship primary as he was confident of emerging winner considering the level of work has put into his campaign.
Audu, however, said he was adopting a different approach to his campaign for the governorship ticket by going directly to the people in the villages, adding that he was against the idea of giving money to delegates to vote for you, adding that he was appealing to the heart of the people.
The APC aspirant, who said he would support any effort at rotating the governorship ticket in the state, however, said he will not support any legislation to that effect as there are better ways of achieving that without necessarily going through legislation.
He added that the idea of rotating the governorship seat in the state was first muted by Kogi elders from the western senatorial district and agreed to by his late father in 1991, but it could not be actualised as a result of the intervention of the military as well as the coming of the PDP that truncated his father’s second term bid.
