Bello/Onoja Dispensation: Uncommon Hope For Commoners »

Shortly before the last gubernatorial election in Kogi State, there was mass movement of young people who, for close to twenty years, had labored for other political parties, in droves to the All Progressives Congress-APC. This got so many political watchers thinking.

However, before then, there were several video clips from the then Chief of Staff to the governor, Chief Edward Onoja, now His Excellency, the Deputy Governor, who took his precious times out to educate the young people about the age long emasculation and marginalization of young people by the political elite who had held sway until Governor Yahaya Bello divinely mounted the number one seat in the State.

This group of elite, many have bitterly complained, had trickily been capitalizing on the woes of the masses to feed fat from the people’s collective patrimony leaving crumbs under the guise of youth empowerment.

They (elite), many people observed, had hid themselves behind the smokescreen of ethnicity and religion to galvanize support of the ordinary people year in, year out that elections came around the corner. This elite are said to have succeeded in this their hide-and-seek game until the Almighty finally exposed their intrigues. This expositions came to quite a handful of the youth via, constant light that was heavily flooded on them by Political Juggernauts like Chief Onoja and other APC stalwarts with many eventually catching a glimpse of the illumination.

A brief rapport with one aggrieved young man who had defected from a popular political party to the camp of Bello/Onoja narrated his long years of dashed expectations.

He said: “I have been working for these people since 1999. Each time we got the young people together to make a demand for our due, they usually told us to wait for our own turn. In fact, they have heavy investments made for their own children across the globe with our money. That means that it will be impossible to match their children whenever their fathers give way to them to come into the political space.” Be laid bare his mind on how he was used and dumped by some elite in another political party before joining the APC.

He went further to grumbly complain: “Imagine three aspirants from the same family could afford to splash close to N80 million to collect forms to contest one election. Similarly, two sons of a former governor also spent a fortune to contest Kogi State governorship election. Just imagine as a son of a poor man, just take a risk and ask any of these people if you’re I’ll and in need of just N50, 000 for hospital bills. You can’t even see them not to talk of listening to you, it’s all a class thing,” he lamented.

“To worsen it all, they don’t even trust any body again at all; not even their relatives like inlaws. It must be either be their direct children or none else. As we even speak, they are grooming their children, the ones who are far younger than us to take over power from them. So, having served father, we will still serve children, God forbid!”

He swore.The young man further said that any young person with a poor or an average family background who still dreams that he has a hope of making a head way in his or her political career following these old politicians, in another Party other than the APC, especially in Kogi State, must be building very gigantic castles in the air.”

He also put on record that the divine way by which this power landed on His Excellency, Governor Bello and with the new path that he and his lieutenants like His Excellency, Chief Onoja are championing, the common man’s child has a hope of rising from grass to grace sooner than later.

– Solomon Enejoh writes from Abuja.