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  • Ododo Presents N820bn Kogi 2026 Budget Proposal to State Assembly

    Ododo Presents N820bn Kogi 2026 Budget Proposal to State Assembly

    By Noah Ocheni, Lokoja

    Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Ahmed Usman Ododo, on Tuesday presented a draft budget of N820.49 billion for the 2026 fiscal year to the Kogi State House of Assembly in Lokoja. The 2026 Kogi budget, titled “Budget of Shared Prosperity: Driving Sustainable Growth for All,” represents an increase of N215.96 billion compared to the revised 2025 appropriation.Presenting the proposal, Governor Ododo said the budget reflects a balanced financial framework focused on enhanced revenue generation, expenditure control, and expanded capital investment. He explained that the recurrent expenditure is projected at N367.45 billion, while capital expenditure is estimated at N453.04 billion.

    According to the governor, the rise in both recurrent and capital allocations demonstrates the administration’s commitment to infrastructure expansion and improved service delivery across the state. He acknowledged the support of the Assembly, noting that legislative collaboration has been vital to the progress recorded so far.“Your legislative support and oversight continue to strengthen our agenda for sustainable prosperity,” Ododo said. He also commended citizens for their resilience amid prevailing economic challenges, adding that their trust continues to inspire the government’s efforts to build a stronger and more inclusive economy.In his remarks, Speaker of the Kogi State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Umar Yusuf Aliyu, assured the governor of the Assembly’s readiness to ensure timely consideration and passage of the 2026 Kogi budget. He said this would enable the government to accelerate infrastructural development across the three senatorial districts.

    The Speaker praised Governor Ododo’s achievements in healthcare, education, road infrastructure, agriculture, and public financial management, noting that these efforts reflect the administration’s vision of a stable and prosperous Kogi State.“Your administration has demonstrated remarkable dedication to improving the living conditions of our people through essential social services, thereby cushioning the effects of ongoing economic challenges,” Aliyu stated. He added that Kogi residents are experiencing renewed confidence due to a leadership style that prioritizes welfare and security.Rt. Hon. Aliyu reaffirmed the Assembly’s commitment to maintaining a harmonious relationship with the executive arm. He said sustaining this synergy is essential for deepening good governance and strengthening democratic institutions for the benefit of all citizens.

  • Kogi Government writes US over Electoral Fraud Allegation

    Kogi Government writes US over Electoral Fraud Allegation

    The Kogi state government has written the United States Government over the electoral fraud allegation levelled against it and visa ban to politicians accused of masterminding electoral violence in the state. 

    The Yahaya Bello-led administration justified its win in the governorship election by pointing out that opposition parties failed to prove they won the election in all courts the case went through.

    The Kogi state government who noted that it is not challenging the visa ban in any way, however protested against US’ “collateral and unwarranted interference in its political and social processes.”

    The letter written by the Secretary to Kogi Goverment, Mrs Folashade Arike and addressed to the US Ambassador to Nigeria read;

    KGS/GO/ADM/25/II/XXX
    16 September 2020

    The Ambassador Of The United States of America
    Embassy of The United States of America
    1075 Diplomatic Drive
    Central Business District
    Abuja, NIGERIA

    Your Excellency,

    RE: VISA RESTRICTIONS ON INDIVIDUALS AND INCLUSION OF THE 2019 KOGI STATE GUBERNATORIAL ELECTIONS IN US STATE DEPARTMENT LIST OF ALLEGEDLY COMPROMISED ELECTIONS – A LETTER OF PROTEST

    1. I have been so directed by His Excellency, Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State and I hereby make and forward this Letter of Protest to you in respect of the matters contained in it.

    2. The Kogi State Government became aware of a United States Government list of individuals who received US visa restrictions for alleged electoral malpractices via a Press Statement to that effect posted on your Embassy website at https://bit.ly/32vD96M. In your own words, the still unnamed individuals are cited as guilty of ‘acts of violence, intimidation, or corruption that harmed Nigerians and undermined the democratic process.’ They are also alleged to ‘have operated with impunity at the expense of the Nigerian people and undermined democratic principles and human rights.’

    3. You also noted in the Statement that the sanctions are derived from unspecified misconducts by the said individuals which extend from the February/March 2019 General Elections in Nigeria through the off-cycle November 2019 gubernatorial elections in Kogi and Bayelsa to the as yet unheld governorship contests in Edo and Ondo States. Please note that for the purposes of this protest letter we are only interested in the citations to the extent that they are referable to Kogi State and her citizens.

    4. For the most part, we concede that elections in Nigeria are complex affairs which will continue to require improvements for the foreseeable future. The 2019 Kogi State Gubernatorial Election was also not without its challenges. However, it is also crystal clear from critical and composite analyses of the records (official, media, observers, etc) of the November 16, 2020 polls that regrettable incidents were limited to a few polling units, while the overwhelmingly larger portions of the ballot were free, fair and credible.

    5. Further, and in line with Nigerian law, the few political parties and individuals who alleged widespread electoral malpractices had free rein to contest the outcome in court. They vigorously litigated their claims over a grueling 9-month period, through a 3-step hierarchy of courts, to the inescapable conclusion at the Supreme Court of Nigeria that the said elections satisfactorily complied with the Nigerian Constitution and the Electoral Act.

    6. Our concern right now is not the prerogative of the United States of America to impose entry restrictions on anyone, for any or no reason at all, which prerogative remains unfettered, but the room for atrocious misinformation which the timing of your Press Statement and the mention of the Kogi elections therein has created in our state.

    7. For the February and March 2019 General elections, your advisory came out in July 2019, long before the Supreme Court delivered her judgments in the petitions against those elections, including challenges to President Muhammadu Buhari’s reelection. The presumption is that in spite of your intervention, the Supreme Court still discovered no merit in the petitions and dismissed them accordingly.

    8. In our case, ie, Kogi State, you made the tactical decision to release the update shortly after the Supreme Court delivered judgments in the 4 petitions which made it before her. Amongst a plethora of well-reasoned pronouncements the Apex Court dismissed the said petitions for failing to prove their allegations and for having no ‘scintilla of merit’. The inference from your timing is that the judgment is somehow tainted and did not meet the justice of the case, thereby casting aspersions, not only on the Nigerian Judiciary, but on the second term mandate freely bestowed on His Excellency, Governor Yahaya Bello by the good people of Kogi State.

    9. We find this unacceptable, and we protest your presumption. The least you could have done, if indeed this is about democracy and human rights as claimed, is create room, no matter how slim, for fair hearing. As it is now, partisan speculation as to who is indicted, who is not and for what, has become cudgels, furiously swung in the media space by all comers. Your action has therefore added abundant grist to the rumour mills and electrified the merchants of fake news.

    10. For instance, a United States based blog, saharareporters.com, has made inflammatory publications in which they named His Excellency, Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, among others, as a definite recipient of your visa restriction. Though you have named no names, accuracy is of no moment to them, just base political expediency, and they quote unnamed US State Department sources to give credibility to what is otherwise unproven.

    11. Also, other players in the Kogi political space, including candidates and officials of opposition political parties which lost the elections and could not prove their allegations in court as aforesaid have now latched onto this action, holding media conferences and making press releases, claiming that the United States has justified their wild allegations and conspiracy theories where the courts and the administrative quarters failed. This is utterly regrettable.

    12. Let it be noted that we are not challenging your visa bans in any way, whoever they may affect and for how long, but we do register the strongest protest possible as a State to the collateral and unwarranted interference in our political and social processes which it represents. You have reignited already dying embers of discord around the February/March General Elections and the November 16 Kogi State Gubernatorial Elections of 2019. This has invariably made our usual post-election duty of reconciliation with fair-minded political opponents all the more harder. We are hurt and disappointed.

    13. Digressing a little beyond Kogi State to our contiguous states of Edo and Ondo, we wish to advice generally that by so preemptively interfering in their elections, both of which are yet to hold, events on ground since your publication indicate that the United States has foisted on our political process, not the expected caution or good behaviour by politicians which may have been your intent, but further calcification of hardened attitudes, more violent polemics, and increased sabre-rattling.

    14. Even now every camp is trying to spin your action as evidence of US support for themselves and hostility to their opponents. Everyone involved in those elections is now stoked with an aura of invincibility and hellbent on displaying all manners of outrageousness on election day to prove their opponents the aggressors. After all, with sanctions looming over everyone like the Sword of Damocles, every stakeholder, including the security agencies are on tenterhooks and less likely to be lively. We fear you may have done our democracy more harm than good with this action, and we consider it most unfortunate indeed.

    15. In conclusion, we believe that if the United States of America, despite her commanding heights and much longer experience as the acclaimed Bastion of Democracy in the world, is still locked in a fight to defend the integrity of her own electoral processes to this very day, then she ought to accord greater empathy, more civility and much less disruption, to nascent democracies.

    16. Please be assured of our high regards always.

    MRS FOLASHADE ARIKE AYOADE, Ph.D
    Secretary to the Government of Kogi State

  • Kogi Government insists state has no coronavirus cases

    Kogi Government insists state has no coronavirus cases

    The Kogi State government has accused the management of the Federal Medical Centre, (FMC), Lokoja of conniving with the Nigeria Center for Disease Control, (NCDC), to declare non-existing COVID-19 cases for Kogi state, insisting that the state is still free of the virus at the moment.

    The commissioner of Information and communications, Kingsley Fanwo, who stated this at a press conference in Lokoja on the discharge of the Chief Imam of kabba, Sheikh Abubukar Ejibunu, who allegedly tested positive for the virus nine days after he was taking into custody, said NCDC has not been transparent in it’s handling of cases associated with the state.

    He noted that while the two index cases were still being disputed, the agency has now gone ahead to build on what he described as “false foundation” by declaring one more case for the State last week, for a total score of three.

    He said that the state was however shocked to discover that the experiences of the chief Imam in the hands of the NCDC are far from everything that Nigerians have been told constitute best practices in a COVID-19 situation, especially its pathogenesis and management.

    Fanwo added that the son’s case is even more strange, as he has a negative test result to confirm that he is COVID-19 free including all his siblings who were tested in the days following as the NCDC serially sought an off-taker for the second COVID-19 case which they had earlier foisted on Kogi State.

    Speaking further Fanwo said “We have called this Press Conference to bring you up to speed on the Covid-19 situation in Kogi State and to further clear the air on our disagreements on some facts and principles with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) over their management of alleged CoviD-19 patients in Kogi State.

    “It is no more news that the NCDC declared 2 Covid-19 cases for Kogi State on the 27th of May, 2020 in circumstances which the Kogi State Government found herself unable to accept as transparent. It has now gone ahead to build on that false foundation by declaring one more case for the State last week, for a total score of 3.

    “The respected Chief Imam of Kabba, Sheik Abubakar Ahmad who is in his early 60s along with one of his sons were the purported index cases from Kogi State declared on May 27, 2020 by NCDC. They were whisked to Abuja from Lokoja on the said day and declared Covid-19 positive a few hours later.

    “After 9 days in her custody, the NCDC discharged the Chief Imam on Saturday June 6th, 2020 and upon his return home, he was extensively debriefed by us with a view to ensuring that any lingering public health implications of his case are identified and resolved.

    “The Chief Imam, an upright and outstanding man who is only interested in the truth confirmed what we have known all along – that he did not test positive for CoviD-19 and received no result of such a diagnosis neither did his doctors at the National Hospital, Abuja where he was confined advise him of it.

    “The cleric maintains that he suffered from nothing beyond complications from an attack by bees, medical conditions which pre-date the Covid-19 pandemic and stress from travels associated with his work. Till he was released yesterday, he was held in conditions which allowed him to interact with visitors.

    “Throughout his father’s time in the custody of the NCDC, and in keeping with his Covid-19 negative status, the son remained at liberty and was his father’s primary helper. He was never hospitalised and was allowed to go home each day and return the next. He was allowed to mingle freely with family, visitors, hospital staff and others. Yet, till this day, he remains the second case of Covid-19 allocated to Kogi State on the NCDC’s scoreboard.

    “You all will recall that despite our disagreement with the NCDC’s conduct in the entire circumstances of this case, we moved rapidly and ensured that every member of the Chief Imam’s family as well as his direct contacts were traced and tested within hours of the NCDC announcement on May 27. They all tested negative.

    “We also declared a total lockdown of his Local Government Area, Kabba-Bunu, and carried out thorough contact tracing and surveillance activities involving active case search, with SARS-COV2 tests duly conducted and completed. Again, we found nothing to warrant a protracted lockdown which is why His Excellency, Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State lifted it after only 4 days.

    “The alleged 3rd Case of Covid-19 credited to Kogi State by the NCDC is shaping up to be another exercise in secrecy and unverifiable processes by the NCDC. Nearly one week after she was sneaked onto the NCDC’s list, the Kogi State Government is yet to be armed with the actionable information she needs to take preemptive actions in line with the Covid-19 guidelines.

    “We suspect that the NCDC’s lackadaisical attitude may not be unconnected with the knowledge that no infection has been found.
    Just like in the case of the Chief Imam and his family, let it be known that we are looking out for our citizen and will demand full reckoning should any harm come to her.

    “We make this briefing because it is important, in line with the sensitivity of public health issues, to communicate developments so that you may in turn inform the public accurately.

    “We make it clear once again that there is no case of Covid-19 in Kogi State. If ever there is, we will be the first to announce it while deploying all recommended protocols and procedures.

    “Our people can rest assured that we will continue to work extra hard to make sure that this increasingly controversial disease does not come into our state. We have been in a state of advanced readiness since the early days of this pandemic. Our isolation centres remain unoccupied, we have thousands of Rapid Test Kits available and we recently acquired a mobile molecular laboratory which will arrive the state any moment now.

    “Global research on the novel coronavirus or SARS-COV2 has caused guidelines on Covid-19 to change with confusing rapidity and Nigerians must hold the NCDC to higher standards of responsiveness and responsibility to make sure that we do not sacrifice the nation itself on the altar of mere notions about the disease.

    All efforts to reach the chief medical director, (CMD), FMC Lokoja, Dr. Alabi Olatunde, proved abortive, as he neither picks is calls or responded to text messages sent to him.