By Musa Asiru Bakare
I humbly crave your indulgence with a very deep sense of understanding as I put forward this write-up to you, especially with reflection to the greatest sense of responsibilities, with references to your actions and efforts during the hardship inflicted on the generality of the Okun people in the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic crises that engulfed the World.
The profound leadership roles played by you individually and collectively in the Pan-Okun people in providing Covid 19 palliatives relief materials to our people.
And when it is combined with the social, economic and political impacts of your physical and financial contributions that has given great hopes of our collective future as a people.
Permit me my dear leaders to remind Okun people through this letter to you of the depth of love, concern and feeling you have tremendously showed and displayed to the admiration of the entire Okun people by your actions that concretized your love for the people.
When the dreaded Covid 19 unleashed its venom on humanity your leadership roles in bringing together the best in Okun people among us has positively brought to the fore, the curiousty of a renewed hope for our people in the future.
You, within a relatively short time garnered the goodwill of Okun sons and daughters together, generated a huge amount of financial resources, gave the very best of the times and touched the lives of the people all across the land. The results are still there for all to see
The question some Okun people asked that struck me at the time was that “How will it be done, how sincere was the entire idea, despite your huge endowment, they displayed their ignorance of the fact that your commit is total, but the level of our belief in ourselves and our leaders is still excruciatingly low. This is unfortunately so due majorly to a very profound and very drastic escalating politics of convenience, politics of self nostalgia and of neglect pervading overtime in our land.
As an erudite administrators that studied Nigeria’s trajectory history, kindly hear me with aching and rapt attention as I launched into a passionate narrative of Okun’s recent slide into politics of unacceptable second fiddle in a clime where our leaders and indeed your children are some of the most intelligent in the face of justice and fairness.
My dear leaders, I am in no doubt as to whether the present political trend can be focused to make serious modicum of progress in the realm of the political life of our dear Okun Nation if you once again bring in the spirit with which you approach the COVID 19 into the very demanding quest of an Okun man or woman becoming the governor of Kogi state come 2024, in spire of the contradictory and cacophonous statements and politicking that have being coming from various directions to the effect that Okuns don’t have a voice.
I challenged everyone with negative and doubtful voices postulating that we have problems of near absence of charismatic leadership skills coupled with poor administrative acumen to an open debate. Okun people and indeed you our leaders are some of the best God created.
It is rather unfortunate that it is only in Okunland that one can see those who should know better do not go beyond the sketchy bits of what other people say to them that they are.
But with due respect to you my leaders at all levels, permit to say a proverb …Agba k’iwa loja k’ori omo tun tun o wo”.
Today, it is as though our political journey even as we trudge towards 2023 gubernatorial election in Kogi State is taking off without those vigour you are evidently known for with little or no new political leadership which has largely become less strategic to our course.
Dear leaders and elders of our time, it had pleased God Almighty to make you Okun leaders of today. It must be clearly said that the growing apprehension among Okun youths is that as 2023 Kogi state gubernatorial election approaches, there is unabashed and surreptitious attempt by some people to ensure the intergenerational perpetuation of certain hegemonic blocs in the state.
I think a lot need to be done in order to dispel this genuine apprehension and subsequently push the frontier of leadership as far as our human ingenuity can go in Okunland.
I must confess that I find nothing wrong and strange in our belonging to different and varied political parties. What we cannot and must not compromised going forward to 2024 is, IT IS THE TURN OF OKUN TO PRODUCE THE GOVERNOR OF KOGI STATE.
Over the years of democratic experiment, we have seen ourselves fight each other unnecessarily over what we ought to team up together and fight for. I am particularly worried because this negative publicity that never ceases to outrage our sensibilities and assault our basic decency as civilized people has conspired to rob us of our collective integrity and rights
My dear fathers and mothers, as we enter another phase as a people, it should be your collective resolve not to bequeath to the coming generation of Okun a drab, sycophantic, overzealous, scatterbrained, and megalomaniac.
With my sound belief in Okun ethics and tradition, we have faith in you and I think this edge of despair can also be the threshold of hope. But it is also pertinent to note that, we the OKUNS have been excommunicated from the present realities. Our only hope now is that, most of our leaders who had hungered and thirsted for Okun glory and political leadership have become disenchanted, you should not leave us to our fate in this wilderness of very fierce contenders.
It may also interest you to know that we are being pushed to the wall. You must resist with all your might and wisdom Okun sons and daughters becoming politically unproductive rascals, morally becoming bankrupt, treacherous thugs, degenerate fools, flyblown sycophants and nitwits of different shades.
This, my leaders and elders, I must confess will be an irredeemable embarrassment to future generations of a people that prides herself as one of the most cerebral group in not just Nigeria but in the World. Our attitude and approach to political struggle are disturbingly worrisome, unpredictable, unimaginable and very much undesirable, looking back to the days of our forefather in their sojourn in Northern Nigeria, in the then Kabba Province and descending helplessly as cherished values of leadership standard run utterly to seed and the whole system took its quantum leap into mediocrity and darkness, capable of deepening the gulf between your hum
I challenged everyone with negative and doubtful voices postulating that we have problems of near absence of charismatic leadership skills coupled with poor administrative acumen to an open debate. Okun people and indeed you our leaders are some of the best God created.
It is rather unfortunate that it is only in Okunland that one can see those who should know better do not go beyond the sketchy bits of what other people say to them that they are.
But with due respect to you my leaders at all levels, permit to say a proverb …Agba k’iwa loja k’ori omo tun tun o wo”.
Today, it is as though our political journey even as we trudge towards 2023 gubernatorial election in Kogi State is taking off without those vigour you are evidently known for with little or no new political leadership which has largely become less strategic to our course.
Dear leaders and elders of our time, it had pleased God Almighty to make you Okun leaders of today. It must be clearly said that the growing apprehension among Okun youths is that as 2023 Kogi state gubernatorial election approaches, there is unabashed and surreptitious attempt by some people to ensure the intergenerational perpetuation of certain hegemonic blocs in the state.
I think a lot need to be done in order to dispel this genuine apprehension and subsequently push the frontier of leadership as far as our human ingenuity can go in Okunland.
I must confess that I find nothing wrong and strange in our belonging to different and varied political parties. What we cannot and must must not compromised going forward to 2024 is, IT IS THE TURN OF OKUN TO PRODUCE THE GOVERNOR OF KOGI STATE.
Over the years of democratic experiment, we have seen ourselves fight each other unnecesdarily over what we ought to team together and fight for. I am particularly worried because this negative publicity that never ceases to outrage our sensibilities and assault our basic decency as civilized people has conspired to rob us of our collective integrity and rights
My dear Fathers and mothers, as we enter another phase as a people, it should be your collective resolve not to bequeath to the coming generation of Okun a drab, sycophantic, overzealous, scatterbrained, and megalomaniac.
With my firm belief in Okun ethics and tradition, I have faith in you. I think this edge of despair can also be the threshold of hope. But it is also pertinent to note that, we the OKUNS have been excommunicated from the present realities. Our only hope now is that, most of our leaders who had hungered and thirsted for Okun glory and political leadership have become disenchanted, you should not leave us to our fate in this wilderness of very fierce contenders.
It may also interest you to know that we are being pushed to the wall. You must resist with all your might and wisdom Okun sons and daughters becoming politically unproductive rascals, moral cripples, treacherous thugs, degenerate fools, flyblown sycophants and nitwits of different shades.
This, my leaders and elders, I must confess will be an irredeemable embarrassment to future generations of a people that prides herself as one of the most cerebral group in not just Nigeria but in the World. Our attitude and approach to political struggle are disturbingly predictable, unimaginative and very much uncharacteristic of our predecessors in the days of our sojourn in Northern Nigeria, of Kabba province and descending helplessly as cherished values of leadership standard run utterly to seed and the whole system took its quantum leap into mediocrity and darkness, capable of deepening the gulf between your humble selves and your followers.
As we approach 2023 elections, I expect bold visionary leadership measures capable of giving Okun a voice, a direction towards addressing this present urgent demand of Okun people, Okun for Kogi Governor in 2024.
