Kogi West Speaks: Karimi’s Record and Resilience Secure Him a Second Term Ticket.
By Abu Micheal
The dust may have settled on the All Progressives Congress Senatorial Primaries in Kogi West, but the reverberations of Senator Sunday Karimi’s victory are still being felt across the seven local government areas. What looked like a near-impossible return to the Senate has ended as a masterclass in resilience, grit, and political survival.
Karimi’s path back to the ticket was anything but smooth. From the moment he declared his intention, he met a wall of resistance from every direction. He was attacked physically and politically. He fought off proxies and stooges within the system. Traditional rulers were mobilized against him. For weeks, he became the daily subject of press conferences and staged protests, with youth groups offered temporary incentives to take to the streets in opposition. In that season, securing an audience or an appointment often depended on how loudly one could appear on television or in press releases to denounce him. The tension was palpable, thick enough to feel from Lokoja to Kabba, Ijumu to Yagba East and West. Within government circles, few gave him a chance. He was subjected to votes of no confidence by party executives, and the calendar became crowded with endorsements, stakeholder meetings, and counter-meetings designed to isolate him.
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Yet Karimi stayed the course. He remained focused, unshaken, and unyielding. His conduct revealed the mettle of a man who understands that true representation is not won in boardrooms or through silence, but in the trenches with the people. It was the courage of someone who refused to trade conviction for convenience, and the steadiness of a leader who kept his eyes on the mandate rather than the distractions.
At the height of the onslaught, he receded from public view. He became unpopular within the system, even as his acceptance and popularity among the people he represented grew quietly but steadily. He seldom came home, and his personal security was no longer guaranteed. Even his rice empowerment programme, meant as temporary relief, was politicized to the point that it was said to have lost its taste and meaning.
The irony is that his so-called “sin” had nothing to do with underperformance. On the contrary, his record in office stood apart. Constituents across Kogi West acknowledge that no senator in recent memory has matched his pace of delivery. He attracted and is overseeing the ongoing N1.2 billion reconstruction of GSSS Koton Karfe. He built a CBT examination centre at Titcombe College Egbe at about N500m partly with personal funds. He brought contractors back to the Kabba-Ilorin road after a decade of abandonment, restarting work on a project valued at N6 billion by pulling together personal resources and political capital. His empowerment programmes remain a benchmark, including scholarships for 4,000 students across the state at a cost of N400 million, support for women cooperatives, market men and women, and farmers. He sank over 150 boreholes, electrified communities, and facilitated projects that cut across education, health, and infrastructure. Even his facilitation of a N760 million military base became a talking point, not as a failure, but as evidence of his reach and resolve.
During reconciliation with party officials, it became clear that his real “offense” was speaking against a rigid system of rotation that threatened to undermine merit, fairness, and equity. That matter was later resolved amicably, but it explained why the resistance against him was so fierce. In the end, his victory was resounding, and the message from constituents was clear: more work, stronger relationships, and deeper engagement with the people.
Karimi’s journey back to the APC ticket is itself a political case study. From clinching the ticket in 2023, to winning the general election, surviving tribunal, appeal, and Supreme Court challenges, his story has been one of determination and focus amid constant distraction. Analysts of Kogi politics agree that no serving senator from Kogi West has matched his combination of legislative output and human capital development. His performance caught many off guard precisely because it was unusual in scale and consistency.
Today, his emergence as the party’s candidate for a second term is more than a personal triumph. It is a story of resilience against coordinated opposition, of a leader who refused to abandon his people to subservience, and of a mandate earned not by benevolence but by work, courage, and the will of God.
In Kogi West, the verdict is already being written into history: Senator Sunday Karimi didn’t just win a ticket. He is a work in progress toward victory. With a weakened political opposition in Kogi West and a people who appreciate his representation and want to remain in the politics of the centre, he looks unstoppable in the general election. He has reaffirmed that performance, not politics of exclusion, still matters to the people.
(DEMOCRACY NEWSLINE NEWSPAPER, MAY 19TH 2026)
