Tunde Olusunle
At the height of the ascendancy of juju music in the 1970s and 1980s, one very popular track which received a lot of airplay was oro mi ti dayo which was performed by Ebenezer Obey, a living music legend who goes by the stage alias of “Chief Commander.” The song was a celebration of the head of the successful Jinadu family of Isale-Eko, in downtown, primordial Lagos. The refrain which caught on like wildfire from the song was o ti goke odo, k’afara to ja, which means “he successfully crossed the river before the bridge collapsed.”
That chorus suggested that Jinadu had excelled in his line of business before things went southward for subsequent venturers. Bandwagonism, what is known in local parlance as “copy, copy,” where entrepreneurs tend to xerox the models and precedence of their precursors, has always been a feature of Nigerian businesses. Jinadu had made good before the market bust on copycats at the time.
You would think that into the second month after the Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial Zone, Sunday Steve Karimi won the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC), to run for reelection in the January 2027 general elections, the focus would be on preparations for the forthcoming debacle.
That Karimi would win the primary election last May, was never in question. Twice in the House of Representatives between 2011 and 2019, representing Yagba federal constituency, he received unanimous support from the seven local government areas which make up the three federal constituencies in Kogi West when he contested for the Senate in 2023. This wholesale adoption was predicated on his track record during his stint in the lower chambers and the way he comported himself during his years out of office. He remained earthed and rooted with his constituents.
The better known name among those who were going to contest the primary with him, was Smart Afolabi Adeyemi, who had been in the Senate for three terms, between 2007 and 2015, and from 2019 to 2023. With the hindsight that he comes from the same local government area as Dino Melaye who represented Kogi West between 2015 and 2019, however, Adeyemi bowed to popular thinking. It would be gluttonous, unjust and inequitable, if a single local government area, Ijumu, which held the office for 16 years at a stretch, 2007 to 2023, was contesting against a federal constituency which has just produced a senator for the first time in the Fourth Republic. He stepped down honourably before the primary and pledged support for Karimi.
Samuel Bamidele Aro, who had a little-remembered, one-term stint as member representing Yagba federal constituency between 2007 and 2011, was not in serious reckoning. Over the years, sadly, he has cut the image of a desperate political voyager who presented himself for every political office in his part of Kogi State, every passing electoral cycle. Aro prides himself as a “veteran” of sorts, having vied for elective office on four occasions. He lost his bid for reelection to the House of Representatives in 2011, to Karimi which was his second shot; contested as running mate to Musa Wada, in the 2019 off-cycle gubernatorial election in Kogi State which they lost as a pair, and most recently acquiesced to being herded into the Kogi West APC senatorial primary, to play the spoiler, against a candidate from his homestead, his local government area.
Confronted with the reality of a formidable opponent in Karimi, despite the backing of elements from the Kogi State Government, and the imminence of a thorough shellacking at the ballot, Aro also summarily dropped his senatorial aspiration. When he recanted and subsequently postured as winner of the primary which returned Karimi, the internet, contemporary nemesis of fraud, falsehood and perfidy, popped up in “4D” with his original Facebook post, wherein he publicly denounced his aspiration. Aro, apparently, has harboured deep-seated animosity against Karimi since 2011, when the latter ran on the platform of the minority Action Congress of Nigeria, (ACN), and defeated him. This was despite the fact that Aro savoured the benefit of the incumbency of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), on which platform he contested at the time. He believes this is when to exact his pound of flesh.
Karimi won the APC senatorial primary with over 51,000 votes, his closest opponent barely scraping 1,000 votes. Between Kabba, political headquarters of Kogi West where the votes were tallied, and the Abuja headquarters of the APC, however, humongous sums of money reportedly changed hands. A falsified submission allegedly abetted by a certain Senior Special Assistant to the President on School Feeding Programme, one Yetunde Adeniji, found its way to the Abuja offices of the APC. In a way, we must now appreciate the wisdom of Ajibola Bashiru, the National Secretary of the APC, who admonished state organs of the party to refrain from announcing the results of primary elections, until they had been cleared by the party’s topmost national authority.
Whereas the APC has since uploaded Karimi’s name as its duly elected candidate for the January 16, 2027 general elections, on the portal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), political hirelings, plain revisionists, provincial reactionaries have hatched one hair-brained scheme after another, to disclaim Karimi’s hard-won victory, while propping up a contender who threw in the towel before the fight, as the victor! Saturday, July 4, 2026, a group which could easily pass as an assemblage of seasoned comedians, jesters and jokers, converged at Reverton Hotel, GRA, Lokoja, to proclaim its own choice of APC senatorial candidate for the January poll, as different from that which has been captured in the database INEC). The gathering created a mental picture of a meeting of renowned rib-crackers like Baba Sala, Baba Suwe, Gringory, and Mr Ibu of blessed memory, plus Baba Aluwe, Osuofia and Papa Ajasco, supposedly overruling a definitive decision of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC)!
Hopefully, the National Chairman of the APC, Nentawe Yilwatda, will immediately activate steps to institute appropriate disciplinary action against the renegades who styled themselves “Kogi West APC Leaders Forum,” met in a hotel room in the Kogi State capital on Saturday July 4, 2026, and named their own candidate, as different from the party’s officially certified flagbearer, Sunday Steve Karimi. That was a civilian equivalent of a coup plot. Their press conference counts for nothing, because the train has long left the terminal. Even at that, the APC must enforce internal party discipline and rein in insubordination at all levels. This should begin with the quasi-insurrection in Kogi State. The names of the convener of the hoax, his accomplices and the attendees who are mainly appointees of the Yahaya Bello/Ahmed Ododo diarchy are in the public domain.
With the rapid approach of the 2027 polls, let it be known by the decision-makers of the APC, that Karimi is the party’s talisman for resounding victory in Kogi West. He is a dye-in-the-wool, grassroots politician who is most at home with his people and loved by them. Whether it is back home in Egbe his hometown, or Abuja his official address, Karimi is a man of minimum protocol, a poster boy for the APC. He wears no airs, his doors ever open. His capacity for listening, for problem-solving is almost elastic. He has a very good grasp of the challenges of his constituents and conscientiously addresses them. From education where he runs a revolving bursary scheme which presently supports 4,000 students from across all the 21 local government areas of the state and is almost completing a N1.5billion makeover of the Government Secondary School, Kotonkarfe, Karimi understands the centrality of literacy to Kogi West. There is also the CBT centre which he has emplaced in his alma mater, Titcombe College, Egbe, to minimise travel risks for students who intend to write national examinations. Scores of graduate youngsters from Kogi West, owe their pensionable employments to Karimi’s selflessness.
The military Forward Operating Base (FOB) in Egbe, a mini-barracks, stands as testament to the kind of contributions individuals can make towards mitigating insecurity. Courtesy of his doggedness, approval was recently granted for the rehabilitation of federal roads linking Kogi West with Kwara State on one hand, and Ekiti on the other hand. Both projects are estimated at about N130billion. Both roads will enhance motorability, socioeconomic activities and indeed security. Karimi has assisted with the water projects across communities; built hospitals and bridges, and funded empowerment programmes for women and youths. In Nigeria’s kind of politics where “stomach infrastructure” has been popularised, Karimi is renowned for his proactiveness in providing food items in ample quantities, for his constituents and indeed beyond. Kenneth Imasuagbon a prominent entrepreneur and politician in Edo State is known by the alias of “the Rice Man” of Edo politics. Karimi may well be the Kogi State variant on account of his proclivity for pointed philanthropy.
Karimi’s traducers have reached their collective wit’s end. Atari ajanaku ki se eru omode, hauling the deadweight of the head of an elephant, is never entrusted to children, a famous Yoruba proverb says. Their plots and ploys, their subterfuge and shenanigans at every intersection have failed and fallen flat. From commandeering hapless traditional rulers to nonsensical meetings, to mobilising faceless groups for worthless protests, every vain effort has betrayed the hollowness of the so-called schemers and strategists and indeed their paymasters. Let them be reminded that the physical seat of the Senator representing any district, is designed to accommodate a single occupant. It is not a bench, or lounging chair. Karimi has earned his ticket. He won his primary election with a landslide. He is APC’s surest bet for 2027 and thankfully, the party knows. Karimi ti goke odo, k’afara to ja. His antagonists are advised to join hands with him on solid ground. Or pitifully clutch at the straws and reeds of defeat, in the muddy waters beneath the broken bridge.
•Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors (FANA), teaches Creative Writing at the University of Abuja.
