APC Aspirants’ Rank Swells as Onoja Joins Kogi Guber Race
By Ozumi Abdul,
The Deputy Governor of Kogi State, Chief Edward Onoja, has swelled the rank of politicians aspiring to succeed incumbent Governor Yahaya Bello as Kogi State’s next Chief Executive Officer, in January 2024.
Politics Digest gathered that Onoja, on Tuesday, collected the All Progressives Congress, APC nomination and Expression-of-Interest forms, for the November governorship election in The Confluence State.
The Deputy Governor, whose forms were picked up at the APC secretariat in Abuja by the Deputy Chief of Staff to Gov. Bello, Hon. Sunday Faleke, accompanied by some other appointees of the Kogi State Government, received the forms in his office in Lokoja.
Onoja, in a short remark, appreciated God for the goodwill, praising his principal, Gov. Bello for his purposeful leadership which has brought peace, unity and development to Kogi.
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According to him, the driving force behind his ambition was the passion to consolidate on the laudable developmental strides initiated by the ‘New Direction’ administration of Gov. Bello.
Edward Onoja, Politics Digest gathered, is a former banker and private businessman who has been in Kogi politics since 1999.
He once contested for the State House of Assembly seat of his Olamaboro Local Government Area, on the platform of the All Nigerians People’s Party, ANPP.
He joined Gov. Yahaya Bello in 2014 to form the Kogi Youth Arise group to deliver the state for APC in the presidential election which brought in President Muhammadu Buhari.
Chief Onoja is also a very close ally of Gov. Bello and played a vital role in Bello’s emergence as Governor in 2015, after the death of Prince Abubakar Audu.
He thereafter became the Chief of Staff to Gov. Bello in his first tenure.
In 2019, when Gov. Yahaya Bello was seeking re-election, he decided to promote Edward from the office of Chief of Staff to run with him on a joint ticket as Deputy Governor, on the APC platform, which they won massively.
