risis looms over Kogi students’ election

CRISIS looms in the umbrella bosy of Kogi State students as the election to produce a new executive of the National Association of Kogi State Students (NAKOSS) ended in controversy and produced parallel executives.  A faction of the students with many of the aspirants on Wednesday boycotted the election following the allegation of governments’ interference in the processes.

However the election conducted and supervised by government agents at the Lokoja Township Stadium produced a 400 Level, economics student of Kogi State University, Anyigba, Usman Ahmed from Lokoja Local Government area, the other group also conducted parallel election at another venue to elect their own executive.

It was gathered that logjam had started when some stakeholders of NAKOSS zoned the presidency of the association to the western senatorial district and particularly to Lokoja/Koto to avoid tension.  But the zoning was alleged to have been hijacked by the government apparatus, who singlehandedly picked one Ahmed for president; a decision that did not go down well with other aspirants.

Amidst the controversies, one of the presidential aspirants, Idris Girinya, has called for the cancelation of both elections which he described as Kangaroo,
saying that the elections of Ahmed was against both the electoral act and constitution of the student body.

Girinya who spoke through the DG of his campaign organisation, Abdullahi Ismaila,  said apart from contravening the electoral act, Ahmed, who is in the last semester of his education was not qualified to contest in the first instance. “This union has a constitution and an electoral act which serves as a guideline for proper electoral conducts and peaceful processes. But unfortunately, these legal documents were not followed. “The selection of one Usman Ahmed as the NAKOSS President by some selected persons on the 21st December is null and void; as he (Ahmed) does not fulfil any of the electoral act and the constitutional requirement. “The reasons been that electoral act and constitutional requirement stating the electoral guidelines stated that all aspirants must be screened by the screening committee and the electoral advisory committee must be setup that only successful candidate shall be qualified to contest.

Unfortunately, none of these provisions were met. It is on this note that we are calling for disqualification of the selected candidate and postponement of the election”. The aspirant also said the electoral and advisory committee ASA and the reconciliation committee for the convention were not put in place, while the rights of the aspirants were thwarted by the stakeholders acting the scripts of the government agents.