Candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), in the just concluded 2023 House of Representative election for Ankpa, Olamaboro and Omala Federal Constituency of Kogi state, Ben Adaji has urged the Okun Community to vote for the party candidate in the upcoming governorship election, Murtala Ajaka to end marginalisation in the state.
Adaji while briefing journalists in Jalingo said, the people of Okun community in Kogi West Senatorial district have suffered marginalisation in the political arrangements of Kogi, since its creation in 1992, and believed that a vote for the SDP candidate would end the trend.
The SDP chieftain expressed that, President Bola Tinubu’s words to elders of Okun community who visited him at the presidential villa Abuja last week that, politics was a game of numbers, that the people of Okun need to negotiate their way out of marginalization if the required numbers are in place was commendable.
In his words, “I wish to buy Tinubu’s advice, to urge the people of Okun Community to vote for Hon. Murtala Yakubu Ajaka the SDP candidate in the upcoming governorship election in the state to end the marginalization against the people.
“Ajaka is aware of the power arrangements in Kogi and will give the Okun people a strong voice if elected.
“I wish to submit here that through dialogue and understanding, the people of Okun can benefit from the governorship seat of Kogi State and not through violence as is the case of the present governor Yahaya Bello.
“In order to restore the arrangement that was put in place for the consideration of Okun people prior to the sudden and sad death of Prince Abubakar, they should support Ajaka the SDP candidate to win in the contest.
“I was privy to the arrangement for power shift for the Okun people to produce the next Governor of Kogi State in 2015 after Price Abubakar Audu’s four years tenure and that was why Hon. James Abiodun Faleke was picked to deputise Audu before death struck in 2015, thereby destabilizing the arrangement.
“I want to call on the elders of Okun to go back to the drawing board and engage Murtala Yakuba Ajaka in a similar dialogue with the view to realizing the dream”. He solicited.
Adaji also advised Governor Yahaya Bello to count himself lucky rather than thinking he was invincible.
He lamented that Governor Bello has turned against the Igala people who gave him overwhelming support and chose to impose his cousin, Usman Ododo on the people of Kogi by all possible means.
