Among the off-cycle elections that were held in Nigeria over the weekend, the Kogi governorship election appears to be the most surprising based on the results released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Before now, the election in the state has always been between the All Progressive Congress and People Democratic Party (PDP); the APC have always come first while the PDP comes second but this time around, a surprising twist took place.
In the result declared, APC came first as usual but PDP was replaced by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in second position. PDP came third dishonourably because the difference between the party and SDP is far above 150,000 votes.
In several years, it has not happened in this manner and was not expected this year because PDP’s candidate, Senator Dino Melaye is quite popular and was very visible during the campaign period.
However, all that happened in the election had been foretold by Nigerian prophet, Primate Elijah Ayodele before the election.
Primate Ayodele had always maintained that if the opposition wants to win the election, they should come together to support one candidate. Last month, He warned APC to be on alert as he foresees the SDP putting up a very big fight. He mentioned that SDP must not be underestimated while stating that PDP will have a confusion arrangement.
“In Kogi state, APC must not sleep because the SDP will give the party a very big fight. SDP is ready with every mercenary in Kogi state. SDP must not be underestimated. PDP will have a confusion arrangement. They must not overlook SDP….’’
Some few days before the election also, Primate Ayodele made another statement mentioning that the election in Kogi state will be tough and that APC will win but the SDP candidate will be a factor in the election.
He stated that the PDP will not do anything serious in the election and that the opposition will not win but the candidate of SDP will make the election tough. He revealed that results will not be counted in some areas if care isn’t taken. He concluded by saying APC will win the election no matter how the margin is.
These were his words; “The election in Kogi state is between APC and SDP. Ajaka will fight a serious battle with the incumbent. Oppositions will fail in the state because they didn’t do coalition, they are all selfish, if not, coalition would unseat the ruling party but they all want to be in power at the same time. I am not seeing what PDP will do in the election but SDP will make it a fight to finish. The election will be serious and if care isn’t taken, they won’t count results in some areas. The election in Kogi will be for APC no matter how the margin is, it will be a tug of war…’’
As Primate Ayodele said, APC won the election though not by a landslide because of the efforts of the SDP candidate. Many didn’t believe SDP would make any serious impact in the election but as the man of God foretold, the SPD candidate turned out to be a ‘factor’ in the election.
The PDP on the other hand fell badly in this election with a token of 46,362 votes. SDP got 259,052 while APC got 446,237 votes.