OKUN people are Yoruba descendants in Kogi State. Kogi is a multi-ethnic state and Okun people are up to 27 per cent of the state’s population, smaller than the other two major completely different ethnic groups, Igala and Ebira. Okun people are spread across six local government areas in Kogi State, known as Kabba-Bunu, Yagba-West, Yagba-East, Mopa-Muro, Ìjùmú and Lokoja local government Areas.
Kabba is the present headquarters of Kogi Western senatorial district. It was the administrative headquarters of the Kabba province of the defunct Northern Region. But with this intimidating pioneering antiquity, it is yet to regain its pride of place in the socioeconomic and political equation of Nigeria.
A myriad of externalities have characterized the fate of Okun people in Nigeria and tended to accelerate the pace and dynamics of dysfunction in the socio-economic, political and cultural life of the Okun person, making him or her the laughing stock of fellow citizens and the hewers of wood and drawers of water in the Nigerian scheme of things.
The 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, under the fundamental objective and directive principles of state policy, as outlined in section 17 (1), explicitly states that: “The state social order is founded on ideals of Freedom, Equality and Justice.”
The Okun axis is yet to produce a governor after the creation of the state on august 27, 1991.
In my humble opinion and also in the beauty of democracy and fairness, the 2019 Kogi governorship poll should be exclusively opened to a credible, trustworthy, reliable and firm but decent Okun aspirant that will make Kogites proud.
- Emmanuel Funsho
Kabba, Kogi State