PRESS RELEASE
ODODO MEETS OKUN ROYALS, TALKS DOWN KOGI EAST VOTER STRENGTH
The Okun Leaders League, (OLL), is compelled once again, caution the Kogi State Governor, Ahmed Usman Ododo, from denigrating the royal institution of Okunland, in his desperate quest for endorsement for a second term. We equally warn against the Kogi State chief executive’s attempt to cause socio-ethnic disaffection in the state, following comments credited to him at the said meeting.
Reports reaching OLL indicates that Ododo on Thursday November 5, 2025, invited the chairmen of the traditional councils of the five core Okun local government areas, led by the Obaro of Kabba, Oba Solomon Owoniyi, for a security meeting. Rather than address the pressing security concerns in the Okun area recently accentuated by kidnappings and killings, and layout the plans of his administration for its decisive curtailment, Ododo reportedly veered off into canvassing his reelection in 2027.
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Governor Ododo was alleged to have spoken of the desire of Kogi Central zone to match the four-term sojourn of Kogi East in Government House, Lokoja, between May 1999 and January 2016. According to him, the rotational template designed by his benefactor and predecessor, Yahaya Bello, was for the Okun bloc in Kogi West to take over the rulership of the state in 2031 for a period of eight years, while the Lokoja/Kotonkarfe segment of the district, takes over in 2039.
Ododo reportedly said the population and voter figures recorded in the last two governorship elections in the state, showed clearly that these numbers from Kogi East were actually inflated at state creation in 1991, to engender the domination of the Igala ethnicity in Kogi politics over several decades. He was said to have reminded the traditional rulers that they command tremendous respect from their subjects who will listen and comply with their request to support his second term.
*Okun Leaders League* want to make it abundantly clear, that Kogi State is not the personal estate of any individual or group of individuals who believe they have captured it and can selfishly dictate its political direction from their bedrooms. By the time Kogi State was created 34 years ago, Ododo and his leader, Yahaya Bello were starry-eyed, teenage secondary school students who lack any knowledge about how and why the state came to be. Between them in the last 10 years, they have added minimum value to sociocultural harmony in the multilingual state and its advancement. Kogi State remains one of the most backward in Nigeria, a profile which has worsened under the Bello/Ododo hegemony.
Governor Ododo is advised to sit at his desk in Lokoja and see if he can redeem himself in the coming two years of his mandate, rather than herding Okun royal fathers around like schoolchildren. We wonder why he is not committing as much energy to wooing traditional rulers in Kogi East which has nine local government areas, much more than is obtainable in Okunland.
ENDORSED BY:
● Canon Andrew Baiyekuhi
Kabba-Bunu
● Mallam Qassim Yusuf
Ijumu
● Dr James Ogbondeminu
Mopamuro
● Engineer Omobowale Palufe
Yagba East
● Chief Samuel Obaro
Yagba West
