APC primary: Yahaya Bello’s media director alleges gang up, pocketing of delegates

Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State’s media office has berated the process that led to the emergence of the All Progressive Congress flag bearer at the just concluded presidential primary in Abuja.

Yemi Kolapo, Director, Media and Publicity, Yahaya Bello Presidential Campaign Organisation, in a statement on Tuesday,   said that mode of primaries whereby delegates who have largely been pocketed by their paymasters and who defer to the highest bidder are made to choose flag bearers of a political party is as warped as the process itself.

She however insisted that Bello remained the hero of the primaries having fought till the very end despite a gang up to deny him the mandate.

Bello ran a strong nationwide campaign focussed on the youth with promises to unify the country, end insecurity and provide economic opportunities for the poor.

Read full statement below:

YAHAYA BELLO REMAINS THE HERO OF THE OPPRESSED

The All Progressives Congress’ presidential primary elections have come and gone. The process was largely peaceful but highly compromised. This is however not new in a country where democracy is defined as the government of the oppressors by the oppressors and for the oppressors.

It is sad to note that those who should know and who many progressives had thought of as leaders with integrity are the ones working against the people they were (s)elected to represent for egocentric reasons.

In this process, one leader stands out, according to the majority of Nigerians. And that leader is one that has proven to the downtrodden and those regarded as “Nigerians without surnames”, that regardless of agelong intimidation by the elite, the best of our people can stand tall without compromising the values that we should have been known for as a nation.

That leader, I say with all sense of fairness, is Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello of Kogi State. He is the hero of this process and has made his point loud and clear to the admiration of even his worst enemies.

If there was a clear, desperate gang-up by northern governors and the leaders of a party against one person, and that person never for once disappointed his teeming supporters but rather fought to the very end, not minding the crooked process, then he should be celebrated by the constituency he represents – the youth.

A mode of primaries whereby delegates who have largely been pocketed by their paymasters and who defer to the highest bidder are made to choose flagbearers of a political party is as warped as the process itself.

It is obvious that in a bid to prove that he is not one of them, enemies of this project, Nigeria, went beyond speaking with delegates and oiling their palms to ensure that votes that did not represent Yahaya Bello’s popularity were counted against his name. But they have unwittingly made him the hero of the moment.

We do not have to talk much but to pray that God Himself would deliver Nigerians from the hands of enemies of democracy. Poverty is a tool they have used for long to keep Nigerians poor. At the right time, however, this jinx must break!

We only wish that this obvious crack in the ceiling would not eventually make the ceiling cave in.

We want to thank the media immensely for their solid support in spite of persecution and mischievous information being churned out by detractors. You are indeed partners in progress.

Yahaya Bello remains the hero of this process.

Thank you all.

Yemi Kolapo
Director, Media and Publicity,
Yahaya Bello Presidential Campaign Organisation