Ododo: How minority triumphed over majority in Kogi governorship election

<p>The 2023 off-cycle governorship election in Kogi State has come and gone, but one major highlight of last Saturday’s poll was the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Usman Ododo.</p>, <p>Ododo’s victory in the off-cycle election was an indication of the second minority tribe overcoming the majority in Kogi State.</p>, <p>DAILY POST reports that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Ododo the winner of the controversial 2023 governorship election in Kogi State.</p>, <p>The APC governorship candidate, according to INEC, had won the election with 446,237 votes, defeating his closest rival, Murtala Ajaka of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), who scored 259,052.</p>, <p>However, the just-concluded governorship election saw a new narrative of how the minority conquered the majority with votes from the Ebira people, which is the second-largest tribe after the Igala ethnic group.</p>, <p>Reports by INEC indicated that Ododo polled over 135,000 votes from Okene, which is in the Ebira area of Kogi State, unlike in Idah, the biggest local government in the state, which had less than 15,000 votes. The record showed that Ebira people decided to come out en masse and vote for their own, Ododo.</p>, <p>Prior to the APC primaries in the state, Ododo, who is the Auditor-General of the state, was relatively unknown and was not given any chance at winning the poll despite being the preferred candidate of the outgoing governor of the state, Yahaya Bello. Both Ododo and Bello hail from the same Kogi Central and Ebira ethnic group.</p>, <p>During the party’s primaries, Usman-Ododo defeated a political juggernaut like Kogi West Senator, Smart Adeyemi and the likes of Shaibu Audu, Stephen Ochen, and Sanusi Ohiare.</p>, <p>To ensure Ododo’s emergence during APC’s primaries, the outgoing Deputy Governor Edward Onoja, ex-Finance Commissioner David Adebanji-Jimoh, Ashiru Idris, Okala Yakubu, Abdulkareem Asuku (Chief of Staff), and Accountant-General Momoh Jibrin withdrew from the race.</p