APC will retain Kogi, says Onoja

Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello’s running mate on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Edward Onoja, has said that the party will retain the control of the Northcentral state.

He said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will lose its deposit at the November 16 poll. Onoja spoke in Lokoja, the state capital.

After his emergence as the flag bearer, Bello nominated his Chief of Staff, Onoja, as his running mate for the November 16 election.

Keen watchers of Kogi politics were not surprised that Bello dumped his deputy, Simon Achuba, for his CoS, Onoja. Bello and Achuba had fallen out.

The news of Onoja’s nomination  was greeted with jubilation among APC members and supporters. They believed that the governor made the right choice for the party’s victory. The combination of Bello and Onoja, in their view, will pave way for further development, if APC wins.

Announcing Onoja’s nomination, the Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the governor, Onogwu Muhammed, said: “As Director-General of the APC’s Presidential, National and State Assembly Elections Campaign in Kogi State in the 2019 general elections, Mr. Onoja, is considered the lodestone of the APC’s unprecedented clean sweep of nearly all elective positions on offer in the 2019 general elections.

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“The APC, it will be recalled, won 25 out of 25 State Assembly seats, seven out of nine House of Representatives, two Senate seats in Kogi earlier in the year, thus cementing Governor Bello’s electoral supremacy and Edward Onoja’s reputation as a strategist and grassroots tactician.

“Edward’s commitment and passion for the realisation of the administration’s policies, outcomes and targets are second only to the governor’s. The governor’s choice of Edward has thus been lauded as wise by a cross-section of the state’s citizen who believes his love for his boss and passion to develop the state transcends everything else, making him ideal for the kind of supportive and effective Deputy Governor Bello will need following a win on November 16.”

An APC leader in Lokoja, Fancy Jimoh Tiamiyu, said the choice of Onoja was a welcome development, that has further brightened the chances of the party.

Tiamiyu, a grassroots mobiliser said: “It is a perfect combination that is going to give us victory at the poll. Onoja is one man I can always vouch for, having related and worked closely with him as an ally for years even before he became the Chief of Staff to our leader in the state in 2016. He has, undoubtedly, been one of the greatest pillars of the New Direction Administration of Governor Yahaya Bello. He has demonstrated a great deal of unmitigated loyalty, steadfastness and dedication to the government of Yahaya Bello, as the Chief of Staff, and therefore, one cannot but say that his nomination as deputy governorship candidate is well-deserved, because he has worked for it.”

The APC chieftain added, “As a matter of fact, it was he (Onoja) who in the last general election led the APC to deliver the elections held in Kogi East where the PDP has two former governors, sitting senator, House of Reps members, Assembly members and also former national chairman. We thank our amiable governor for this kind gesture. By this decision of GYB, APC’s victory has been further assured in the November 16 gubernatorial election. All the youths and women in Lokoja are solidly in support of the Bello-Onoja project and we are going to work round the clock to make it a reality.”