Governor Yahaya Bello asks all his appointees to submit details of voting in their wards

GOVERNOR Yahaya Bello of Kogi State has asked all his political appointees to submit details of the voting at their local wards during the last gubernatorial elections to ascertain if they managed to deliver their polling booths for him.

On November 16, Kogians went to the polls in what was a two-horse race between Governor Bello of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Musa Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).  After the elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission declared Governor Bello the winner with 406,222 votes to Mr Wada's 189,704 votes, giving him a 216,518 margin.

Now due to begin setting up his second term administration, Governor Bello has asked all of his political appointees to submit accounts of their stewardship during the election. In a memo entitled Submission of your Stewardship to the New Dimension Administration, signed by the secretary to the Kogi State government, Folashade Ayoade, the governor directed all heads of ministries, departments and agencies to submit a report detailing their stewardship.

The memo read: “Following the decision reached at the state executive council meeting held on Wednesday, November 27, His Excellency, Yahaya Bello, the executive governor of Kogi State, has directed all heads of ministries, departments and agencies to submit in details their stewardship to the new direction administration in respect of their ministries. The report, which should include local governments, office held, duration, ward, polling unit, result of election in their polling unit and ward, should be submitted not later than December 6.”

Kingsley Fanwo, Governor Bello's director-general of media and publicity, said the results were needed for research and planning purposes. He added, however, that the criticisms generated by the memo were unnecessary.

Mr Fanwo said: said: “Our attention has been drawn to an internal memo illegally circulated on the social media and the mischievous meanings read into the memo. We wish to make it clear that the memo was nothing but a routine data collation for the purposes of research and planning and has nothing to do with the falsehood that the memo was aimed at political vendetta.

“The governor has intrinsic confidence in his outgoing aides as people of impeccable loyalty to the development of our dear state and their incredible contributions to the electoral success of the governor and the All Progressives Congress are not in doubt. Our research office will collate all the results and analyse them for planning."