The struggle for 2019 is becoming tense with political parties and politicians engaging in realignments and maneuvering to strategically place themselves and outwit each other inside the coming election. One of the major political actions of the year preceding the election was the defection of 14 senators from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) last Tuesday. 13 of the senators left for the Peoples Democratic party (PDP), whilst the remaining one decamped to the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
The defection, which become the first phase, according to the ones involved, was concluded with the dropping of the broom for the umbrella by the governor of Benue state, Samuel Ortom. Absolute confidence the movements of the lawmakers and the governor will affect political calculations in their various states because the nation looks forward to the 2019 general election.
In Kogi state, the advent of the senator representing the western senatorial district of the state back in PDP is already one of the talking factors among politicians, specially as it was believed that one of the conditions accepted via the leadership of the party was to present automatic tickets to the defectors.
Before Melaye finally jumped out of the ship of the APC to the PDP, the problem of who to represent the senatorial district in 2019 has been agitating the minds of the people with preponderance of evaluations settling for the Yagba federal constituency of the district. Kogi West has seven local government areas with 3 federal constituencies, that are Yagba with three local government areas, Lokoja/Kogi and Kabba-Bunu/Ijumu.
When democracy returned to the country in 1999, the senatorial district was represented by Senator Tunde Ogbeha, from Lokoja/Kogi federal constituency for 2 terms, from 1999 to 2007. He was replaced via Senator smart Adeyemi, from Kabba-Bunu/Ijumu and also spent eight years, from 2007 to 2015. The development heightened the agitation for Yagba to produce the next senator in 2015, which led to a huge range of aspirants from the place for the seat, in the build up to the 2015 election. However, none of the 2 principal political parties in the region that participated in the election fielded a Yagba candidate. Even as the PDP had Adeyemi as its candidate for a third term, the APC provided Melaye, also from the same Kabba-Bunu/Ijumu federal constituency, who finally won the election.
But, after the election and the criminal battles that followed between Adeyemi and Melaye, the former defected from the PDP and joined the camp of the state governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, who as at that time was already having a running battle with Melaye.
In the same vein, the return of Melaye, who was elected into the house of Representatives in 2007 on the platform of the PDP, again in to the party is producing controversies inside the district as a few party members felt the move would later amount to robbing Peter to pay Paul. The primary salvo that tough times awaits the senator in the PDP was thrown by the Elders’ forum of the party in the area. The people said even as they were not against the coming of the vocal senator given that politics is a game of numbers, they would, however, be vehemently against handing over the ticket of the party to him automatically.
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