Lokoja — BARELY six hours after the acting governor of the Kogi state, Hon. Abdullahi Bello sacked the state executive council, the state governor elect, Captain Idris Wada alongside his deputy governor elect, Arc. Yomi Awoniyi yesterday resumed in their respective offices as the duly elected governor and deputy governor of the state.

On assumption in the office of the state governor, sources informed our correspondent that Captain Wada directed all political appointees of the out-gone governor of the state to ignore the sack order of the acting governor and go about their normal government activities.

Captain Wada and his deputy came into government house around 12 noon escorted by heavily armed policemen and operatives of the State Security Services (SSS) who gave him a safe passage to the office of the governor of the state.

Though, the acting governor, Hon. Abdullahi Bello was not seen in the office of the governor, his close aides informed newsmen that the acting governor is still in Abuja on the invitation of the Vice-President, insisting that their boss is the still the acting governor of the state according to the judgment of the Supreme Court.

The sources said that Captain Wada was acting on the instruction of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which validated his victory as the governor-elect of Kogi state having won the 3rd December, 2011 Kogi state governorship election and also issued with a certificate of return as the duly elected governor of Kogi state.

Later in a statewide broadcast, Captain Wada pointed out that the Supreme Court judgment as it relates to Kogi state came with its own challenges, adding that, "while we are not eager to carry out a post mortem of those events, they must be seen as teething problems of an emerging democracy.

"I wish to assure all the good people of Kogi state that rather than allow those events to distract us from the our set goals, my deputy and I saw them and tackled them as our first major challenge of leadership in the state.

"Every single step we took was guided by the full consciousness that all this is not about us, it is not about power or our personal ambition or ego; it is about a sacred mandate which all our people gave us to chart the course that will take Kogi state to where it ought to be.

"We therefore earnestly urge all our people to appreciate that no matter which zone we come from and no matter what we profess, we are all part of something greater than us: which is our dear Kogi state.

"I am therefore appealing to all the good people of the state to let us quickly put the events of the last few days behind us and remain focused as a united and indivisible people. Let me remind us that at the end of the day what will count are not the points of conflict, but how strong we came out of it as family".

He then added that government will in a very short period constitute a committee of stakeholders from across the state to reconcile all aggrieved parties in order to ensure that the genuine grievances of any of the parties are not overlooked.

Source: allafrica.com