Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello would have been an easy pick for All Progressives Congress (APC) if he had managed his first term well. Second term was not enough to tilt public support to his favour. He doesn’t have the support of his State.
Less than 3% Kogites within voting age support his presidential ambition. And this is largely predicated on his abysmal, shameful, garrulous and arrogant first term with profound misgovernance.
Bello, by nature, is a likable person if you met him before he became a governor. He was empathetic and gave a listening ear. He seemed focused and looked equipped for the job. These would have been the ad had he transferred them into governance.
But nah, our guy became a lord of the manon and got consumed by the tag of a ‘governor’. An ephemeral title. He became brazen and lost the empathy that once endeared people to him.
He lost focus, embraced thuggery and unleashed on his own people tyranny. A young decent and amiable personality who suddenly became arrogant to elders and people he leads. He doesn’t listen and sees everyone who knew him before he became a governor, calling his attention to his derailment and maladministration as enemy.
I for one would think the referendum against him during failed Dino’s recall and the general election, where for the first time, Lokoja was turned into a war zone would show or prove to him his unpopularity.
How can a young man who in 2016 got the supports of every section of the State, the East, West and Central lost it to the minus within 4 years?
It was not hatred. It was self caused and self inflicted.
Bello’s first term was a monumental disaster. May such afflictions not befall anyone again in Jesus Name.
His second term is relieving, considering the pockets of projects going on simultaneously across the State.
Indirectly, it solves hunger and reduces poverty. Had he started well like this in his first term, with human face and empathy, his presidential ambition would be state-owned and not the individualism and premature characters parading themselves as advocates of an ambition dead before birthed.
The people, Kogites who would have pushed Bello’s ambition and own it have all been fought with. Spent large parts of his first term fighting and quarelling with everyone. He became a despot and a tyrant. And his strategists fan and stoke the flames of discord and division because it benefitted them. He put more money in their pockets, drove people away, leaving them closer. Today, shame has deprived them going to meet the same people they told are not useful. Politics is so interesting.
There’s no permanent friends in politics, just interests. But rather that quilt people’s interests to his governance, he pushed them away and became greedy. Chop alone. The one who said the elephant is big enough was called a thief but the one who didn’t say but carried the whole elephant sees himself as the saviour. The life is truly not balanced.
Civil service reform was a trojan horse and a leeway into perfidy. In fact, it was pedagogically perfidious! (A new method of deception). The mendacity and treachery that prevailed and pervaded the first term were unequalled. And they were needlessly needless.
I’ve had some of the present appointees put all the failures of the first term on Edward. That he was in charge in the first term. That can’t I see improved changes in this second term. I laughed and told them: ‘Nobody outsource power’. Edward acted on consent from his Boss.
Bello lost his ambition because he lost his goodwill… Even though there’s a clamour for power shift to the South, if BELLO had done well. If he had led well and ensured exemplary leadership, looking at the division and lack of trust between the north and the south, a young man from the Center who’s doing well, healing the sick and raising the dead would have been called or looked upon to unify and heal the land. But he didn’t do well. Heaven helps those who are prepared.
You can’t do for Nigeria what you didn’t do in Kogi. You can’t lead Nigeria when you haven’t led Kogi. You can’t build Nigeria when you didn’t build Kogi. You can’t have an experience to lead Nigeria when such didn’t translate to a better Kogi State
I’d advise Bello, if he’s really serious with his ambition to start now. As the power goes to the South. It is an opportunity for him to mend fences, reach out to people and stay politically relevant. Go the Senate first term and become a minister in the second. He’d have understood the workings of the national assembly and the way of the executive. And as power returns to the North, he’d come out and make a statement. While that tarries, Kogi needs their governor to keep doing the best he’s started in this second term…
Nobody hates you. Your first term was awful and woeful! Second term is a relieve.
God bless You and bless Kogi State.
– Henry Francis Folaranmi writes from Lokoja!
