
Comrade Joel Oyibo Salifu, running mate to the Kogi state All Progressives Congress (APC) Governorship candidate, Ahmed Usman Ododo, has declared that the unity of the state is more crucial than pursuing a divisive and retrogressive Igala agenda.
Comrade Joel Oyibo Salifu, addressing Kogi East Apc supporters
The Deputy Governorship candidate made the declaration over the weekend in Ejule, his hometown, Ofu local government area, in the Eastern Senatorial district of Kogi state.
Addressing thousands of APC supporters at the rally organized to welcome him home after his selection as running mate to the flag bearer, Usman Ododo, Comrade Salifu, reiterated that for a positive and fast development, the Igala people should unite and cooperate with other people of the state.
According to him the recent introduction of the ‘Igala agenda’, meaning ‘only Igalas for Igala candidate’, does not sound reasonable and portends disunity and is capable of dragging the state back to the medieval era of empires and kingdoms when democracy was a taboo.
Salifu, who is a Teacher by profession, was the Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, Kogi State Council when he was nominated as the running mate to Ahmed Usman Ododo, the APC Governorship candidate for the November 11 election.
He recalled that since the creation of the state in 1991, the people of the Eastern Senatorial district and in deed the Igalas were not marginalized, and wondered about the sudden apprehensions especially in this striving democracy.
The APC Governorship running mate, therefore, appealed to his Igala people not to allow some few power mongers to ostracize them from the comity of Kogi state and Nigeria at large, urged them to jettison the faulty Igala agenda for peace, unity, and the progress of the state. he said