Kogi Guber: 10 Parties Working With Me, Says Accord Candidate

The Kogi State governorship candidate of Accord Party, Admiral Jibrin Usman (retd) has said 10 political parties have collapsed their structures to support his aspiration.

Usman, who stated this at a press conference in Abuja yesterday, said the state of decadence across many critical sectors of the state economy informed his decision to join the race.

Responding to a question on Accord willing to merge with other parties ahead of the November 11 election, 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 merging parties. 

“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. 10 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 as the governor of Kogi State.”

He stated that he saw a high level of decadence, lack of infrastructure for effective development and suffering when he embarked on a tour of some districts in Kogi East.

On the security situation, 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,” he said.