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By Yabagi Mohammed.
God knows I don’t envy the Governor in this job he is saddled with. Governance is difficult, if not the most difficult job and the worst curse God can place on a man. I used to think being the Governor of a state is about enjoyment; now I feel otherwise. There is hardly any state that is more complex, hence more difficult to pilot than Kogi state. Unfortunately.
People have continued to wail about lack of salary payment, but it is most disheartening that even some workers that are receiving their backlog of salaries in droves; when I say “droves” I mean in the upwards of ten months and more at once are not acknowledging that fact to the public.
Even those who ordinarily should be thrown into the dredges of unemployment, or better still, have their asses thrown in jail because they forged the documents with which they were employed, but pardoned and paid, are keeping mute.
This means one thing; some people, who hitherto had been swimming in our common patrimony through the ghost names they fixed in the systems to serve as conduit of defrauding the state are threatened that their corruption has been exposed; and as such, are sponsoring some scallywags to give the present administration a bad name.
I have seen passion demonstrated by the Governor and those around him towards ensuring the state is fixed and sanity returned to our civil service and the workforce reformed for optimal service delivery for the benefit of the common people of the state. But these clique, powerful as they have become, are hellbent on giving the “New Direction” a bad name.
Unfortunately, governance space in Kogi has been made so open. We can now see happenings in government in their nakedness. We now understand that despite all the hullabaloo, the administration of Alhaji Yahaya Bello is fighting tooth and nail towards repositioning the state; a departure from past norms.
When someone said from the top that “corruption is fighting back”, you can never have a more classic case of the ” fighting back” than in Kogi State. When you go out and see the practical projects and programmes of the present administration is executing across the three senatorial district, you would marvel. I am not exaggerating. You would practically wonder whether the reality on ground equates what you read and hear in the Media.
Previously, one project was usually blown out of proportion when with accurate measurement you would find out that the contract sum was inflated ab initio and majority of the sum went to private pockets. That is no longer the case. Due process is always followed in the award of contacts and due diligence also observed in delivery by contractors.
Today, true Rural Electrification Projects are being executed across the state. People are also being encouraged to go into farming as evident in the number of cultivated lands across the length and breadth of the state. This, no doubt, would enhance efforts towards food sufficiency in the state by the end of this farming season.
Aesthetics is everything. Physical beauty attracts suitors, and with that in mind, the remodelling and modifications of some infrastructure are going on in the state. Our roads are no longer as they used to be before the present government took over power as the drainage project commenced by the previous administration have been continued with substantial part (more than 90%) completed.
It doesn’t matter what anyone is saying, Bello is taking the bull by the horn. He is looking at the enemies of the state in the face and saying; “bring it on.” He is the most courageous Governor the state has ever produced in terms of a true leader required to make the seemingly difficult decisions that would being progress to Kogi State.
Others have made attempts at reforming the civil service. They had carried out screening exercises at the end of which the reports were abandoned without implementation. They put politics ahead of steps necessary for the economic prosperity of the state which would have benefited the unborn generations.
There is no way this would have been possible without doggedness and resolve to take difficult decisions that would being progress to Kogi state as we see Governor Bello do.
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