I have endued with disgust the notorious insinuations by promoters of Alhaji Jibrin Isah, alias Echocho, that their principal won the Monday, January 9th 2011 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governorship Primaries in Kogi State. This is Echocho’s sole claim to political relevance in Kogi State.
This bare-faced liars must think we have poor memories. Permit me to refresh their memories with facts that are well known to Kogites across the state.
First, Echocho was a ‘nobody’ until the then Governor Ibrahim Idris (Ibro) adopted him as a political son. Some even claimed he bribed Ibro through his son Mohammed and his late Wife. Candidates like Salihu Atawodi, Isah Kutepa and Bayo Ojo were the three main aspirants in the Peoples Democratic Party in 2011. Echocho was no where close to these reputable men in terms of intelligence, political ‘know-how’, voters appeal and credibility.
Bayo Ojo, who formally petitioned the national chairman of the party, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, claimed that the congress was completely manipulated to his disadvantage
“Up until the election, I was the leading aspirant in the state in all the run off polls conducted. It is therefore impossible that I scored only 30 votes out of almost 1,000 votes cast by the delegates.
“With the observations, it is therefore crystal clear even to a blind man that the said gubernatorial primary election was fraught with gross irregularities and malpractices, thus making the outcome questionable, objectionable, unacceptable and should therefore be cancelled,” the Ojo insisted.
Permit me to re-present the response of Dr Tom Ohikere to Echocho’s pretentious lamentations.
“But in a statement by the Commissioner for Information, Dr. Tom Ohikere, he said that the January 2011 governorship primary election in which Isa (Echocho) emerged the flag bearer of the party was cancelled by PDP since the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the courts said that the tenure of the Kogi, Adamawa, Sokoto, Cross River and Bayelsa governors were yet to expire.’
“Ohikere also said that the decision to conduct a fresh primary election to determine the governorship candidate of the party was not made by the state, but by the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) like any other party involved in the December 3 governorship election.
“He explained that it was the national secretariat of the party that fixed the dates and guidelines for the ad hoc election that elected the three delegates per ward, to which Isah and others presented themselves for all the processes that culminated in last Thursday’s primary election.
“We wish to state that Jubrin Isah was a key player in all the processes that eventually led to the election of the ad hoc delegate elections that produced three delegates per ward and the governorship primary election.
“He bought a governorship primary election form at the national secretariat of the party, presented himself to the Tesilim Folarin Governorship Primary Election Screening Committee that took place in Lafia, Nasarawa State,” the statement said.
According to the statement: “at what stage did Alhaji Isa (Echocho) realise that the cancelled governorship primary election was still subsisting, when he presented himself for all the processes that led to the September 22 governorship primary election?
“At what stage did he come to realise that the ad hoc delegate list election was a fraud? For the records, the ad hoc delegate election took place on September 17 and it took him six clear days to realise that it was full of irregularities.” (c/f: http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/kogi-govt-insists-wada-is-pdp-candidate/99371/)
This man Echocho is dubiously insincere with his followers and the good people of Kogi state. We know the truth and cannot be swayed by his falsehood.
– Tijani Abubakar writes from Lokoja
