My Dear People
The outcome of the just concluded PDP’s Convention of 9th December in Abuja has compelled me to write us this letter of admonishment, this piece you are reading is a direct transcription from my heart, it is born out of my undying love for the people.
I advise my readers to concentrate more on the message and pay little or no attention at all on the messenger, make sure you put on your thinking cap immediately to decipher the real message it connotes properly and avoid jumping to conclusions, it will be very unfair of you to do so
The crux of the matter
The just concluded PDP’s convention has come and gone but left serious lessons for us as a people to learn, in that whole gamut of the exercise we had three (3) indigenes of our great Kogi in the race competing for one position, National Publicity Secretary (NPS) one from Kogi west, by the name Kola Olagbondiyan while the remaining two are from Kogi east, they are Barr Muhammed Kabir and Hon Faruk Adejoh JP, both are from the old Ankpa LGA, meaning they are one family, better still they are from same axis.
The most painful aspect of the whole exercise is not that they both lost the election woefully but the show of shame exhibited by the both camp. Instead of coming together to form a rock of solidarity to defeat the person from the other side of the divide, and bring the trophy back home, they were busy shooting tantrums at each other, washing their dirty linen in the public, printing the unprintable against themselves, and at the end of the day, they where shamelessly congratulating the person that floored them. This is the exact metaphor, that keeps sinking our land, enwu k’ajuwe maje’n ki-fu fia tuka (whatever is not edible for the chicken, let it be scattered by it).
Even though the southwest (Yorubas) failed the election, they did not fail the Yoruba race, as they did not at any point use uncomplimentary words against each other, and above all, to prove the oneness of the Yoruba race, they stepped down for one person, though that it was of no significance as far as the race was concerned, what this signifies is love, unity and leadership.
But what about the two IGALAs in the race, what did they do? Secondly, what did the leaders in that party do to bring them together and ensure that they approach the battle with full force (solidarity), I know too well that, they are both loyalists of the immediate past governor and his predecessor and yet they both fought each other seriously to pave way for their sole opponent to carry the day, this is very sad! What story are they coming back home to tell us?
They whole thing smacks of failure of leadership in Igala race. If extra care is not taken, then we are in for the worse, and I pray history should not repeat itself again, if not we should expect replica of the scenario that brought us to the tragic position we are now.
From the unfolding sequence of events, it’s high time we began to prepare, our plan B and C, to avoid extension of the pain we the majority are going through in Kogi state. In Benue state, this is 41years after the creation of the state, power is yet to change hand, but in our own case, just within 3 decades we have been reduced to the weeping partner of the arrangement that we are the Alpha & Omega.
What is happening to us is as a result of what is happening with us. What we are calling Igala unity is just mere “smokescreen” we don’t have single love for our place at all, the only love in existence on our land is complete selfishness, love for one self alone, but we keep pretending, that we are together and we love ourselves, whereas it is far from that
My dear people of Kogi east, please remember that once beaten twice shy they say, you can see things for yourselves now, we shouldn’t rely anymore on any so called leader(s) and their merger or largest party, they have failed and still exhibiting the tendency for same, what they are after is position and money, they don’t love you at all.
If I may ask, which of them is fighting for the impoverished civil servants, who are yet to collect salary for the past 22months? Which of them is speaking on behalf of the suppressed Artisans, the overtaxed Okada riders and drivers, the pure water sellers, the starved and maimed teachers, the oppressed and the sacked university lecturers, the abandoned farmers, the unprotected and gagged citizens, who are been kidnapped on daily basis? What about our farmers who are living at the mercy of herdsmen?
We are the reason(s) for our own predicament, in the last APC primary over 20 igalas were in the race, and at the end we are now suffering the consequences of the bad process we just ignored, claiming ignorance but supported it on selfish grounds.
The solution to our problem is a paradigm shift from our usual attitude/character, we need complete departure from our old beliefs and ways of doing things, we need a revolution of the mind, our way of doing things have to change to the best global best practices. Its high time we stopped worshiping people because of money.
Let nobody hide under old and expired political glory to deceive us, they don’t have solution to the modern political/leadership conundrums.
They are all bereft of ideas! They are not intellectually sound and mobile to lead us to the future. They are actually far behind us and are as empty as an empty drum which can only make the loudest noise and are not IT compliant. The solution to the present problem is in the hands of the present generation.
I’m admonishing those of us youths, who are self-recruited errand boys to them, just to survive on stipends from them. Stop doing amebos job, olufofo at age 40years, when your juniors are president in big countries like France and so on, please learn to use your productive age well, instead of being perpetual placard carriers and social media assistants to those who knows nothing about leadership.
Who told you, that you can’t perform better than those you are worshiping and their families, stop being slaves to father, wife and sons (trinity) because of money. Put your talent to use just for once, stop bootlicking now.
They have only succeeded in enriching their immediate families alone at our expense. They have succeeded in converting commonwealth to personal use, but only allow you access to crumbs/remnants. If care is not taken, you will inherit their children as your new master in a short time to come. I see this evolving already as some of our youths are already serving the children of their master. Oh what a pity! What a self inflicted injury, one slave to serve two generations of masters
I’m calling on the leadership of Igala Associations to act fast to nick it in the bud, before the whole things degenerates to uncontrollable epidemic. The multiple meetings here and there, gathering crowd to show our strength is not the solution to our problem as the number of Igala governorship aspirants continue to swell up by the day, and instead of creating a forum to engage the people that are concerned and dialogue, we continue to gather unnecessary crowd. No that is not the way to go about it. it is the right time notable associations like, ICDA, UKOMU-IGALA, OJUJU- AGBADUFU come together to chart common goal for the race, by bringing all the aspiring personalities under a forum for a dialogue with them, with the view to prune down the list to pave way for the best candidate to emerge and work to return “Igala Nation” to her pride of place. There is nothing that cannot be resolved through dialogue, even world war, the missing link now is the nexus for discussions, which is key.
If we leave the issue in the hands of these failures, we have succeeded in extending our doomsday again.
You people should get the list of the whole Igala aspirants and start dialoguing with them on way forward, all of us must not be the governor at the same time. Just one person at a time, we can have many kingmakers but one King at a time. If you love the people this is the time to show it.
Let us pay small price now to salvage the land than to dodge the problem and face the big consequence later. We should stop dodging our responsibilities as the consequence of dodging ones right of action is always painful and regrettable.
Accept the assurances of my esteemed regards
I’m yours faithfully
Citizen Akwu Umar-Pharooq Goodman
