By Yohana Samson
Ahead of the Kogi State November 11 governorship election, the Accord Party Candidate, Admiral Jibrin Usman (retd), has announced that 10 political parties have collapsed their structures to support his aspiration.
Usman stated this at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday.
He explained that he joined that governorship race in order to reverse the asphyxiation of the state through the mismanagement of the state’s resources over the last couple of years.
Usman expressed sadness over what he described as the level of decadence across many critical sectors of the state economy.
Responding to a question as to whether Accord Party would accept to merge with other parties to brighten its chances at the upcoming polls, Admiral Usman responded in the affirmative.
He said, “We have all seen the resultant effect of the arrangement between two parties that brought about this situation.
“So, there is nothing bad about parties merging. It is constitutionally allowed. There is nothing wrong if for instance, my party decides to merge with another party.
“It will interest you to know that ten political parties have indeed merged with my party and my state party chairman has taken them on board.
“Ten parties are with me, some are adamant but they have approached me that I should give them more time.
“This is to tell you that other parties have assessed the capacity of the Accord candidate . All things being equal, I will emerge the Governor of Kogi State.”
Usman, who retired as Chief of Naval Staff, also lamented that the security situation in Kogi State was deteriorating on a daily basis.
According to him, “Security as we have in Kogi State today, is nothing to write home about. People in the state cannot sleep with their two eyes closed.
“What happened to the candidate of the SDP on his way to Kogi is an affront and a reminder of the level of insecurity in Kogi State. It is surprising that nobody has been questioned till date.
“In Kogi State, we are faced with high level of kidnapping, political assassinations and thuggery which is a subject of its own in Kogi.
“And a lot of people are dying as a result of poverty. Criminality as we have in Kogi is occasioned by lack of jobs.
“The youths go through hell to make both ends meet. A lot of them graduated from universities but have nothing to do.
“This is why many of them are recruited by their political masters as political thugs.
“Should this continue like this in the state? As chief security officer of the state, shouldn’t he ( Governor Yahaya Bello) liaise with the appropriate security agencies to request for deployment to give it a check? If we are there, we know the appropriate agencies to call upon.”
In the area of education, Usman promised to reverse the decay in the education sector by improving the quality of basic infrastructure as well as enhance the welfare of teachers while at the same time providing opportunities for them to improve themselves in order to impact knowledge.
He said, “When we went round, the level of decay with respect to our educational infrastructure is unimaginable.
“In Ibaji, there is nobody there. So the schools there are dead and floods have taken over the whole place.
“Something has to be done differently and we are the people to do it differently.
