KOGI 2023 GOVERNORSHIP: The Thin Time-* _Comrade Dayo Onibiyo_

*KOGI 2023 GOVERNORSHIP: The Thin Time-* _Comrade Dayo Onibiyo_ 

Every day, the day breaks to reduce the thick smoke on November 11th Governorship election in Kogi state, which, unfortunately, has now been reduced to a tribal race, rather than a rat race.

Sadly, this tribal race is not attending to what the capacities of the would be signatures, otherwise, candidates who are involved in the tribe race flying party flags will do, and such unglorified approaches are rather turning the race away farther from the normal race!

I have been opportune as a now partyless man, who left the PDP shortly after its primaries, some three months ago, and by virtue of that new status, being able to see and study from a closer and non-partitioned political position, review the ways the race is being approached by all the parties, and funny enough, none of the 14 political parties on the race is approaching the race technically and pragmatically; as everyone has one excuse or the other to latch on at the expense of the real issue, touching on the people are left unattended to, which ideally should have being strictly an unfolding development politics, but rather efforts are on presently skewed towards doing royal rumbles with another party.

The dramas are many from internal wrangling of this party suspends that officials or person to, where some parties like the NNPP are still in court as to their candidate, to wranglings in Accord party to another like this party versus that party, an example is SDP vs APC, PDP vs ADC and so on, so much that some parties are even now reported by opposing party not to even have members anymore, by way of self-assumed endorsement and aggrandizement. 

Same way fights are on, on most unregulated free for all fight platforms in the state, which has been turned into a theatre of war, where people's fathers and mothers are brazenly insulted, officials and Government functionaries are called all sorts of names and even threats are randomly issued to life and not excluding challenge for physical spoils, mostly by people who, are best described as online touts and thugs, who the candidates don't even know or barely knows. To many, this is what they ignorantly classified as campaigns, when decorum is thrown to the trash.

The scribes that reaches out to the parties too are busy beating drums of war with hard words, hates and attacks while some have been having a field day responding with brimstones and fireworks at the Governorship election already divided along tribal lines! thus, leaving the would-be voters as mere spectators of high emotions, betrayed by ethnic bigots who must choose along tribal grounds, for they are not shown the reality of how a candidate wants to approach the problems of topical issues such as Security, Health, Agriculture, Education, Tax, Culture, Science, infrastructural deficits Investments, and what have you, as peculiar to Kogi state situations.

The best a few of the political parties has done is to download their national party's Manifestoes addressing national issues verbatim for the people of the state, that is the very very few that care and bother less to relate the contents therein to the specifics of Kogi state.

It is worrisome however, to see that, a few parties that have one or two things to say about their candidate are weaving it around sentiments and reducing it to self-praise rather than linking it to how such will favour the state come the new government and possibly the governance that is expected to be birthed from the November 11th, 2023 Governorship election result.

Let me relax your nerves a bit, on a platform we set up called the *ELECTORATE* , when we ask for campaigns by political parties, all you are greeted with, are pictures of candidates, their coined names, and just a few, very few of what their candidate has presumably done and most times without verifiable submissions. You are left to wonder if those pictures will solve the mountain of issues in Kogi state.

When we were running students union elections offices in our various higher Institutions, what we are greeted with, are posters with inscriptions like, Accountable, Trusted, Dependable, Tested, Trustworthy, Reliable and so on, same is what we are seeing today in aspirations running to salvage the state, rather than speaking to issues driven by a solution offers, getting into the statistics of the state and marrying it, to the needs of the people versus what the realities on grounds are and offering ways out!

Effort to get the parties to break down their proposed areas of intervention when they assume power, trying to make them win the people by what they will do to attract votes, have failed woefully. In fact, you hardly see any campaign running now, because we routinely asked them to speak to issues for the people to decipher. Making a platform to be issue-driven is as good as enforcing total silence.

I draw from a strategic position, the need for all the parties that are on the turf already, to reposition, re-strategize and change their communication style as we are now less than 90 days from the D-day proper, as this will help reduce tensions and allow the much desired and needed election to be taken away from TRIBAL HUNTS to SOLUTION HUNTS.

We need to care, about where history and posterity will place us and not forget quickly, how it will not forgive us if we don't take it off the tribal shelf.

Good enough, the new voters' registration digits have not given either Igala, Ebira, or Okun the opportunity to win this election straight without the Bassa, Ogoris, Oworos and what have you! It has rather technically positioned the state to UNISON, as if nature saw ahead what was coming in 2023!

It's therefore, my humble advice as a Strategic Communications' professional, I.T Consultant, and a Politician to send this signal for renewal to all political parties and their communicators (writing, speaking, and mobilizing) to stop heating up the body of polity of Kogi state and go to issues they want to solve with how they will and let the people buy in.

Statistically, you will be shocked that, if you conduct a survey today in Kogi state as I did sample, well over 45% of Kogi state sons and daughters as well as residents with PVC are undecided yet, who they will vote, you may choose to deceive yourself by saying they know who they won't vote already, while another 38% are pure tribal bigots, who are hell-bent on voting their tribes across board East, West and Central.

From the above, these tribal bigots will mean serious splitter votes in Okun and Igala blocks and strong sympathy votes presently pretending to be totally Central bias from the Central, which will eventually vote to either Okun or Igala, due to their belief in a united state and for the fear of tomorrow, which they believe is now hunting the Igalas.

This class of people is however, strongly breakable in the dying minutes if they are confronted by facts of the capability to solve their now age-long sufferings, which has not changed their poor status and pains, which they now more than before desire to do away with, in their deep of mind, which unfortunately, those with funds feels they will latch on to coast to victory.

It is simple, that this 38% can be depleted with strategic communication and mobilized with the 45% to do the magic while the 27% or less will be left to die as bootlickers to their various masters in all the political parties as they only understood party colours, but can unwittingly wag to money when thrown at them.

As stakeholders, driving the values of our parties, we owe it a great duty to change the narratives to issue based campaigns, and make the _babialla_ supporters go out of job, in other to reinstate peace into our electioneering system towards 2023 November 11th in Kogi state, thereby pushing the not bringing in-value followers out of business.

*A stitch in time will surely save The Thin Time*

 _Supported by:_ 

KOGI FOUNDATION TEAM (KOFOT)