The Director Media, Yahaya Bello Campaign Organisation, Dr Yemi Kolapo, has said that Bello, a Presidential aspirant on the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC), remains the hero of the oppressed.
Kolapo made this known in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja, following the just concluded Presidential primary of the APC, which she described as peaceful by highly compromised.
She said that amidst the compromise by some selfish elite, Bello stood as a leader for the downtrodden without a voice and name.
“The All Progressives Congress’ presidential primary elections have come and gone. The process was largely peaceful but highly compromised.
“This is, however, not new in a country where democracy is defined as the government of the oppressors by the oppressors and for the oppressors.
“It is sad to note that those who should know and who many progressives had thought of as leaders with integrity are the ones working against the people they were selected to represent for egocentric reasons,” she said.
According to her, in this process, one leader stands out, according to the majority of Nigerians. And that leader is one that has proven to the downtrodden and those regarded as Nigerians without surnames.
“That regardless of agelong intimidation by the elite, the best of our people can stand tall without compromising the values that we should have been known for as a nation.
“That leader, I say with all sense of fairness, is Gov. Yahaya Adoza Bello of Kogi State. He is the hero of this process and has made his point loud and clear to the admiration of even his worst enemies,” she said.
Kolapo stated that if there was a clear, desperate gang-up by northern governors and the leaders of a party against one person, and that person never for once disappointed his teeming supporters but rather fought to the very end.
She stated that Bello fought till the end for the interest of the masses not minding the crooked process and should be celebrated by the constituency he represents, the youth.
Kolapo lamented the mode of the primary elections, where delegates were obviously bought by the highest bidder of political parties.
“A mode of primaries whereby delegates who have largely been pocketed by their paymasters and who defer to the highest bidder are made to choose flagbearers of a political party is as warped as the process itself.
“It is obvious that in a bid to prove that he is not one of them, enemies of this project, Nigeria, went beyond speaking with delegates and oiling their palms to ensure that votes that did not represent Yahaya Bello’s popularity were counted against his name.
“But they have unwittingly made him the hero of the moment. We do not have to talk much but to pray that God Himself would deliver Nigerians from the hands of enemies of democracy.
“Poverty is a tool they have used for long to keep Nigerians poor. At the right time, however, this jinx must break!
“We only wish that this obvious crack in the ceiling would not eventually make the ceiling cave in,” Kolapo stated.
Kolapo appreciated the media for their immense support in spite of persecution and mischievous information being churned out by detractors, describing them as partners in progress.
