Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello has charged the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship campaign council to focus on issues and the performance of the current administration.
The governor stated this during the inauguration of the Kogi State APC governorship campaign council yesterday at the Government House in Lokoja.
He told the campaign council not to preach ethnicity or religion but to campaign on what the government achieved in the last eight years as well as the ability of the APC governorship candidate, Usman Ododo, to build on the current administration’s successes.
He urged members and supporters of the party not to join issues with others who do not have anything to offer in terms of adding value to the state and its inhabitants.
He said, “Forget about liars, whose stock in trade is thuggery with nothing to offer. Go out there and preach what we have on ground in terms of infrastructure, not about ethnicity. Kogi State belongs to all of us. I have always said that Kogi State has the potential to be great if only we stop playing politics of ethnicity.
“I want all of you to go and work for the success of the party and you will be adequately rewarded,” the governor said.
In his remarks, director general of the campaign council who is also minister of Steel Development, Prince Shaibu Abubakar Audu, said his late father and former governor of the state had never believed in ethnic agenda but in a vision for the growth and development of the state.
Audu charged the Igala nation to shun ethnic agenda that would not bring about development in the state.
He said Governor Bello, in the last eight years, demonstrated his father’s vision for the state through appointments, distribution and execution of projects across the three senatorial districts of the state without an iota of bias or sentiment.
“My father had a pan Kogi vision and was never a leader that focused on Kogi East.
“Any agenda that focuses on a particular senatorial district instead of Kogi State would not bring about justice, equity and development. We know that Igala people are agitating for return of power to the East but it must be discussed and resolved because power can never be taken with force.”
