…A critical reflection on political loyalty, democratic dividends and the price of Igala votes
By Prof. Suleiman A.S. Aruwa
The question now being whispered in villages, university campuses, markets, professional circles and political gatherings across Igala land is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid:After years of political support for the All ProgressivesCongress (APC), what exactly has the Igala people received in return and should that support continue into 2027?
This is not a call for the Igala people to vote for or against any political party. It is a call for political introspection. It is also a question that should not be answered emotionally. The Igala people must move beyond the politics of sentiment, personality, ethnicity and party loyalty and begin to evaluate political relationships through the cold language of development, representation, accountability and measurable outcomes.
Recent events make the question particularly timely. APC stakeholders in Kogi East have already declared support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo ahead of 2027, while simultaneously demanding a new and more equitable framework for political power rotation in Kogi State. That position contains an important contradiction: If the political arrangement requires renegotiation, why should the votes be committed before the terms of the new political bargain are established?
The Igala Paradox: Important at Election Time, Peripheral in Power?
For decades, Igala land has demonstrated enormous electoral significance. The people vote. They mobilise. They campaign. They defend political parties. They produce legislators and political leaders. But electoral importance does not automatically translate into political power. And this is perhaps the greatest question confronting the Igala political elite today:Has our electoral strength been converted into commensurate political influence and socioeconomic development?
Recent APC stakeholders’ own demand for a “distinct, transparent and equitable” framework for power transition suggests that this concern has not disappeared. They specifically warned against Kogi East being relegated to the status of an “appendage” of another political bloc. That is not merely an opposition argument. It is now part of the conversation within the APC itself.
Let us be fair: APC has not done nothing
A serious political commentary must resist the temptation to say that government has achieved nothing. That would be unfair and intellectually weak.
The Kogi State Government says 18 road projects are currently ongoing across Kogi East, including projects in Dekina, Olamaboro, Omala, Ofu, Igalamela/Odolu and Idah. It also reports power interventions, education investments and healthcare initiatives in the region. The state government has also pointed to additional road projects, including the Idah–Onyedega Road and Odenyi–Oguma–Sheria Road.
The Federal Government, meanwhile, has highlighted continuing infrastructure interventions in Kogi State, including federal road projects, according to the Ministry of Information.
These interventions deserve recognition. The problem, however, is not whether some projects exist. The problem is whether the scale and nature of those interventions constitute a transformational development strategy for Igala land. There is a profound difference between: projects in a community andtransforming the economic destiny of a people.
From Constituency Projects to Economic Transformation
The Igala people must ask a more ambitious question.
Where is the comprehensive economic strategy for Igala land?
Where is the industrialisation programme?
Where is the agro-processing revolution?
Where are the irrigation schemes capable of transforming agriculture from subsistence to commercial production?
Where are the large-scale rice, cassava, yam, palm oil, fisheries and livestock value chains?
Where are the industrial parks?
Where are the export-processing opportunities?
Where is the strategy for turning the River Niger corridor into a major logistics, agricultural and commercial corridor?
Igala land has enormous productive potential. Yet too much of the political conversation remains centred on roads, boreholes, transformers, empowerment items, political appointments, small grants, and constituency projects.
These are useful. But they are not a development strategy. A road can connect a farmer to a market.
But government should ask: What will the farmer sell? At what price? To whom? Where will it be processed? How will it be stored? How will it reach national and international markets?That is where the conversation should go.
The Youth Question: What Future Are We Building?
The most dangerous democratic deficit is not the absence of a road. It is the absence of a future. Igala youth are increasingly educated, connected and ambitious. Many leave Kogi East forAbuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Kano, Benin, overseas destinations. Why? Because education without economic opportunity becomes a migration programme.
Government announcements of employment and empowerment are welcome. The Kogi State Government has recently referred to plans for more than 12,000 employment opportunities. But the electorate should ask:
How many of those jobs will be permanent?
How many will be private-sector jobs?
How many will generate taxable economic activity?
How many young people will become entrepreneurs rather than political beneficiaries?
How many enterprises will survive beyond the political cycle?
The objective must be to build a productive economy, not an economy of political beneficiaries.
Education Must Produce Economic Power
Igala society has historically valued education. But today, we must ask a harder question: What is the economic value of the education we are producing?
The future cannot be built solely around graduates seeking government employment. Igala land needs an education ecosystem built around Artificial intelligence, Agriculture,Engineering, Medicine, Entrepreneurship, Digital Economy,Research, and Manufacturing.
Imagine an Igala innovation corridor linking Anyigba , Dekina,Idah, Igalamela-Odolu, Ofu and Ankpa axis with technology hubs, agricultural research, food-processing enterprises, vocational centres, universities and digital businesses. That would be a genuine democratic dividend.
Political Appointments: Representation or Tokenism?
Political appointments deserve particularly serious scrutiny. The issue is not simply how many Igala people receive appointments. The question is: How strategically important are those appointments?
A community can have many appointments and still have little influence. What matters is participation in institutions where:
Recent reporting has raised questions about the distribution of state-level appointments, including the representation of Kogi East among commissioners. Whether one agrees with that criticism or not, it reinforces the need for a transparent conversation about equity in political representation. The Igala political class should stop measuring success merely by counting political appointments.
It should measure decision-making influence.
The Most Important Question: What Is the Bargain for 2027?
This is where the debate becomes uncomfortable. If political leaders are asking Igala people to support APC again in 2027, the people have every right to ask: What is the development compact?
Not promises. Not slogans. Not political rallies.
A compact, for example:
These should be pre-election questions, not post-election complaints.
The Politics of Gratitude Must End
There is a dangerous political culture in Nigeria in which citizens are expected to be grateful whenever government constructs something with public resources. But government does not build roads with private money. It does not construct schools with politicians’ personal funds. It does not distribute public resources as gifts. These are public resources.
Citizens therefore have a right to demand value for money. The correct relationship is not Politician gives us project, citizens become grateful, and citizens vote. It should be Citizens give mandate, government uses public resources, government delivers results, citizens evaluate performance, mandate is renewed or withdrawn. That is democracy.
Igala Votes Should Become Political Capital
Perhaps the greatest mistake of the Igala political class has been treating votes as an expression of loyalty rather than as negotiating capital. A vote is valuable. A bloc of votes is even more valuable.
But votes become politically worthless when given away without conditions.
The recent statement by an APC chieftain from Kogi East that the Igala people should participate in political structures while demanding clear commitments is revealing. His argument, in essence, is that political support should be linked to identifiable pledges and subsequent accountability. That idea deserves serious consideration.
The Igala people do not necessarily need to abandon APC. They need to abandon unconditional political loyalty.
If APC believes it has performed well in Igala land, it should welcome an independent scorecard.
Let government publish projects, costs, locations, contractors, completion status, beneficiaries, jobs created, budget allocations, actual expenditure, and outcomes. Then citizens can judge.
If the evidence demonstrates strong performance, APC will have a powerful case for re-election.
If the evidence demonstrates underperformance, citizens should have the courage to say so. This is precisely how democracy should work.
Neither APC nor any other party should receive a blank cheque. There is another danger. Criticising APC must not automatically mean endorsing PDP or any other opposition party. The Igala people should not move from one form of political dependency to another.
The real objective should be a politics of performance. Let every party come to Igala land. Let APC come. Let PDP come. Let ADC come. Let Labour Party come. Let every serious political platform come. And ask every one of them: What exactly will you do for Igala land? Then compare.
The 2027 Igala Political Scorecard
I would propose that Igala Professors Forum, civil society organisations, professional associations, traditional institutions, youth organisations, women organisations and the academic community establish an independent: Igala Development & Political Accountability Scorecard. Every incumbent and candidate should be assessed on:
|
Indicator |
Weight |
|
Infrastructure |
15% |
|
Employment & youth development |
15% |
|
Agriculture & industrialisation |
15% |
|
Education & human capital |
10% |
|
Healthcare |
10% |
|
Electricity & water |
10% |
|
Political representation & inclusion |
10% |
|
Legislative performance |
5% |
|
Transparency & accountability |
5% |
|
Community engagement |
5% |
|
Total |
100% |
Then publish the results before the election. No party should be able to hide behind propaganda. No politician should be able to hide behind ethnicity. No candidate should be able to hide behind party structure.
The choice before the Igala people in 2027 should therefore not be presented as: APC or opposition. It should be:
Performance or patronage?
Development or dependency?
Accountability or blind loyalty?
Political influence or political tokenism?
Economic transformation or constituency projects?
A negotiated future or another electoral cycle?
The Igala people are not politically insignificant. They are not merely voters to be mobilised every four years. They are citizens whose taxes, votes, labour, businesses, farms and intellectual capital contribute to Nigeria’s development. Their political leaders must therefore learn to negotiate from a position of strength, unity and evidence.
Conclusion
Do not sell the future for a political promise. The APC may deserve another mandate. It may not.
That decision should not be predetermined. It should be earned.
The Igala people should therefore enter the 2027 political season with neither hatred nor blind loyalty. They should enter it with a scorecard.
If APC can demonstrate that its record represents meaningful progress and that it has a credible plan for deeper transformation, the people can support it with confidence. If it cannot, the people should have the courage to reconsider.Because the greatest political mistake would not be voting APC.Nor would it necessarily be voting against APC.
The greatest mistake would be giving any party the Igala mandate without first negotiating what the people will receive in return. The time has come for Igala votes to become instruments of development, not instruments of political gratitude. And the question that should dominate every political meeting from Idah to Ankpa, from Dekina to Ofu, from Anyigba to Olamaboro, should be simple: “We have given you our votes. What, exactly, have you given us and what are you prepared to give us before we give you another mandate?” That is not political blackmail.That is democracy.
Prof. Aruwa is a concerned citizen and voter from Idah, Kogi State.