| Yahaya Bello |
Former governor of Kogi State, Captain Idris Wada yesterday expressed sadness over the state of affairs in the state, saying the incumbent governor, Yahaya Bello has rubbished the legacy he left in the state when he was ousted in 2016.
Wada, who picked the Kogi governorship nomination forms at the Abuja secretariat of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), warned groups and individuals fomenting trouble to be ready to meet their match.
Vowing to “reclaim” his mandate through the November 16 governorship election, Wada said he was challenged to re-contest the election by the poor resource management of the incumbent governor.
He said, “This time around if they try it, (violence) we will respond with like, if not more than what they throw at us.
“We are not going to watch people steal an election from us this time around; we are going to fight for it.
“We are going to unite the people of our party, we are going to organise our own young and active people to come up with a very clear response strategy to any violent tendency on the part of the ruling party or anyone in the state”.
He recalled with nostalgia how he effectively manage human and material resources during his last tenure, stressing that he did everything to ensure the security of lives and property of the people.
“When I was governor of Kogi State, I added value to the state. I had several infrastructural projects which I did for the state – rural electrification for more than 400 communities”, he added.
The ex governor regretted that since he left office, many projects that he initiated, some of which had reached about 90 percent completion, had been abandoned by the succeeding administration.
He lamented that since he left office, hunger and poverty had become the lot of civil servants and pensioners in the state, as the incumbent governor has continually refused to pay salaries and pensions.
Lamenting that workers and pensioners were being owed up to 39 months arrears, Wada said, “Kogi was on a part of progress at the time I left, and if I had spent four more years with the kind of money that is coming into the hands of the present governor, Kogi State would have become a state that we will all be proud of.
“My message to Kogi people is, if you bring greenhorn who has no experience, who has no proper working of Kogi State, he will spend about two years trying to find his feet.
“If I move into the Kogi State governor’s office today, I know where I left the state, I will study where it is and I will start driving the ship of the state right away, because we don’t want Kogi to collapse.
“Let us not experiment, go for the experience, go for capacity and I have demonstrated with many of the projects I did”.
Also at the PDP secretariat to collect governorship nomination forms for the Bayelsa governorship election was a former Permanent Secretary, in the Ministry of Power, Dr Godknows Igali.
Addressing journalists shortly after the documentation formalities, Igali said he would reinvent the wheel of progress in Bayelsa State if voted as governor.
The ex permanent secretary said he would focus on agriculture, create employment and engage the energy of young people in entrepreneurship and productivity.
“We will make Bayelsa a productive society where everybody is producing something”, he said.