By joshua 
REJOINDER IN DEFENSE OF CAPT. IDRIS WADA
**AN OPEN LETTER TO UMAR DAN AJI**
By: David Alfred Dogwo
With the same measure of respect you extended to His Excellency Capt. Idris Ichalla Wada in your open letter on your facebook timeline Tuesday November 11, 2025, I write to you as one who served closely with him as his Media Aide during his tenure as Governor of Kogi State. I have read your open letter, and while your concern is noted, your premises are flawed, your timing is suspect, and your counsel is misguided.
You paint a picture of a man being lured into a “divided political camp” and a “cracked APC house.” You forget that politics is not a monastery; it is a marketplace of ideas, alliances, and strategic repositioning. Capt. Wada is not a novice seeking shelter; he is a statesman choosing alignment. The invitation to join the APC on 17th November 2025 is not a decamping ceremony for the desperate—it is a homecoming for a leader who has always placed Kogi’s progress above partisan loyalty.
You list elder statesmen who “stayed above petty politics.” With respect, none of them governed under the suffocating weight of federal opposition that Capt. Wada endured. None had their legitimate mandate challenged by courts, none saw their development projects stalled by withheld funds, and none watched their state slide into insecurity while their party at the center looked away. Capt. Wada did not leave the PDP out of bitterness—he was pushed out by neglect, betrayal, and the party’s inability to protect its own.
You speak of the “Yahaya Bello camp” as if it were a sinking ship. Yet, under Governor Bello’s leadership, Kogi State has seen unprecedented infrastructure: the Confluence University of Science and Technology, the Ganaja Junction Flyover, the Koton-Karfe Water Works, and the revitalized Kogi State Polytechnic. These are not the works of a failing administration. They are the fruits of bold governance—governance that Capt. Wada’s experience in aviation, administration, and crisis management can strengthen, not weaken.
You urge Capt. Wada to “advise, reconcile, and inspire” from the PDP sidelines. But reconciliation without power is mere rhetoric. Inspiration without platform is silence. The PDP in Kogi today is a shadow of its former self—fractured by godfatherism, weakened by defections, and irrelevant in the current power equation. Capt. Wada’s voice will carry farther in the APC, where he can influence policy, mentor the youth, and ensure that the gains of the past eight years are consolidated, not reversed.
Finally, you warn against tarnishing a legacy of decency. Capt. Wada’s legacy is not preserved in isolation—it is protected by relevance. History does not remember those who clung to sinking ships out of nostalgia; it honors those who steered toward progress, even if it meant changing course.
Capt. Wada is not decamping. He is repositioning. And Kogi will be better for it.
May wisdom guide us all.
Yours in service,
**David Alfred-Dogwo**
Former Media Aide to Capt. Idris Wada
Ex-Executive Governor of Kogi State
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