A former Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Jibrin Usman (Retd), has declared confidence that he’ll emerge victorious in the forth coming Kogi Governorship Election scheduled for November 11, 2023 and take over from the outgoing Governor, Yahaya Bello, of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Usman, who is contesting the election on the platform of Accord Party, said this at a press conference in Abuja, on Thursday.
According to him, already a total of ten political parties have collapsed their structures to support his aspiration.
He noted that from his interaction with Kogites across the three Senatorial zones and his visit to every nook and cranny of the state, he came to the conclusion that the state needs a committed patriot like him to reverse the decadence across critical sectors of the state’s economy.
Speaking about the possibility of a merger with other parties in the state, Usman said, “We have all seen the resultant effect of the arrangement between two parties that brought about this. So, there is nothing bad about parties merging. It is constitutionally allowed.
“There is nothing wrong if for instance, my party decided to merge with another party. It will interest you to know that 10 political parties have indeed merged with my party and my state party chairman has taken them on board.
“Ten parties are with me, some are adamant but they have approached me that I should give them more time.
“This is to tell you that other parties have assessed the capacity of the Accord candidate . All things being equal, I will emerge the Governor of Kogi State.
“During our visit to Kogi East, we covered 27 districts. During the tour, we saw high level of decadence, lack of infrastructure for effective development and we that Kogi people are really suffering.
“There is therefore, the need for a paradigm shift. Ours is to rescue our people from Maladministration.”
On the issue of Security, he said, “Security as we have in Kogi State today is nothing to write home about. People in the state cannot sleep with their two eyes closed.
“What happened to the candidate of the SDP on his way to Kogi is an affront and a reminder of the level of insecurity in Kogi State. It is surprising that nobody has been questioned till date.
“In Kogi State, we are faced with high level of kidnapping, political assassinations and thuggery which is a subject of its own in Kogi. And a lot of people are dying as a result of poverty.
“Criminality as we have in Kogi is occasioned by lack of jobs. The youths go through hell to make both ends meet.
“A lot of them graduated from universities but have nothing to do. This is why many of them are recruited by their political masters as political thugs.
“Should this continue like this in the state? As chief security officer of the state, shouldn’t he liaise with the appropriate security agencies to request for deployment to give it a check? If we are there, we know the appropriate agencies to call upon.”
On his plans for the education sector in the state, Usman said, “When we went round, the level of decay with respect to our educational infrastructure is unimaginable.
“In Ibaji, there is nobody there. So the schools there are dead and floods have taken over the whole place.
“Something has to be done differently and we are the people to do it differently.”
The Candidate equally promised to reform the state civil service and ensure that personnel are in tune with modern standards of work efficiently and service delivery in an efficient, cost effective manner in a way that will ensure that Kogi State receives value for
money.
