There are political miscalculations that damage careers. There are strategic blunders that cost elections. And then there is what former Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello is attempting: a brazen assault on democratic rotation so audacious that it insults not merely his opponents but the intelligence of every Nigerian who believes power should circulate rather than concentrate.
In a viral video now circulating across social media, Bello addresses his handpicked successor and purported cousin, Governor Usman Ododo, with remarkable candor: “After your first term, your second term will come with ease. You will win overwhelmingly. Yes, and finish your 8 years plus my 8 years, 16 years.” Sixteen years. From one local government. Okene. While Kogi West—seven local government areas—has been entirely excluded from the governorship since 1991. While Kogi East—nine local governments—watches power that they rotated among three different LGAs and three different federal constituencies during their tenure now concentrated in a single family from a single town.
This is not politics as usual. This is dynastic consolidation that exposes everything broken in Nigerian governance when democratic principles collide with the raw ambition of those who mistake temporary power for permanent entitlement. The numbers alone should provoke national outrage. Kogi State comprises 21 local government areas distributed across three senatorial zones. Kogi East has nine LGAs. Kogi West has seven. Kogi Central, where both Bello and Ododo hail from, has five—the smallest zone.
When Kogi East governed for sixteen years, power rotated among three different local governments: Prince Abubakar Audu from Ofu LG, Ibrahim Idris from Omala LGA, and Captain Idris Ichalla Wada from Dekina LGA. Three LGAs. Three different federal constituencies. Three different political bases. Three different patronage networks. Genuine rotation within the zone that ensured no single local government monopolized power even during their extended tenure. Yahaya Bello proposes the opposite: sixteen consecutive years concentrated in Okene alone. Eight years of his direct rule, followed by eight years of his alleged cousin’s governance—supported by Bello’s commissioners who were transferred wholesale into Ododo’s administration, and overseen by Bello’s nephew (who some claim is his son) whom he appointed as Ododo’s Chief of Staff.
If these facts sound like a political thriller rather than governance, that is because they represent governance as family enterprise rather than public service. When your commissioners become your successor’s commissioners, when your son occupies your successor’s most powerful appointed position, when your cousin becomes your successor—you have not left power. You have simply adjusted the organizational chart while maintaining operational control. This is Yahaya Bello’s third term in practice. Any discussion of Ododo’s “second term” is actually discussion of Bello’s fourth term through proxy. And the insult to Kogi State—particularly to Kogi West and East—could not be more naked.
While Bello pursues dynastic consolidation in Okene, Kogi West has endured 37 years of complete exclusion. Not underrepresentation. Not occasional neglect. Total exclusion. Seven local government areas. Nearly four decades. Zero governors. This is not an accident of political fortune. This is systematic marginalization that violates every principle of equity that rotation is designed to protect. When Governor Abdullahi Sule of neighboring Nasarawa State recently explained his commitment to zoning, he articulated precisely what Kogi West has been denied: “This rotation gives people peace. You give people the opportunity for peace. You give people the opportunity to have hope.”
Sule credited his predecessor, Senator Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, for honoring rotation despite Nasarawa North having only three local governments—even smaller than Kogi Central’s five. Al-Makura understood that democratic leaders are temporary stewards, not permanent owners. He prioritized institutional integrity over personal or zonal advantage. Bello represents the antithesis of this statesmanship. Where Al-Makura saw rotation as providing “peace and hope,” Bello sees it as an obstacle to family consolidation. Where Al-Makura honored zoning despite his zone being smallest, Bello violates it while his zone is also smallest. The contrast could not be starker or more damning.
Here is where Bello’s proposal becomes not merely problematic but insulting: he demands that Kogites accept as equivalent what is manifestly unequal. Kogi East’s sixteen years required three different local governments sharing power. Bello’s proposed sixteen years concentrates everything in one LG, one family, one unbroken chain of control. These are not comparable. Claiming they are is an insult to basic mathematical and democratic literacy. If Kogi East had concentrated sixteen years in Ofu alone, with one family controlling commissioners, appointing sons as chiefs of staff, and passing power from cousin to cousin, it would have been rightly condemned as undemocratic monopolization. What Bello proposes for Okene deserves identical condemnation.
The double standard extends further. Bello promises Ododo that his second term will come “with ease”—not through superior governance or popular acclaim, but through deployed machinery and incumbency advantage. Two years into Ododo’s first term, even Bello’s supporters struggle to identify transformative achievements. Yet performance is irrelevant when family succession is the operating principle. This is not about competent governance earning democratic renewal. This is about family control maintained regardless of performance, with Bello’s viral confession revealing that he sees Ododo’s continuation as assured through machinery rather than merit.
Kogi State’s crisis represents a microcosm of Nigeria’s broader struggle between democratic principles and strongman politics. When leaders openly declare dynastic intentions—when they promise cousins will succeed them, appoint sons to control successors, and concentrate power in single localities for decades—they are testing whether democratic norms have any enforcement mechanism beyond rhetoric. If Bello succeeds, the precedent radiates nationally. Other states will observe that brazen violation of rotational compacts carries no consequences if you control sufficient machinery. Other politicians will learn that family succession faces no democratic accountability if you’re shameless enough to declare it openly. Other zones will conclude that 37 years of exclusion means nothing against entrenched incumbency.
Conversely, if Kogi’s excluded majority—Kogi West’s 7 LGAs and Kogi East’s 9 LGAs representing 76% of the state—organizes effectively to resist Bello’s fourth term in 2028, it sends an equally powerful message: that numerical majorities matter, that rotational principles have teeth, that dynasties can be defeated when democratic forces unite. Senator Sunday Steve Karimi of Kogi West and stakeholders in Kogi East face a historic choice. They can accept Bello’s declaration of sixteen-year Okene dominance, making peace with the humiliation of permanent subordination. Or they can forge the alliance that 76% of Kogi’s LGAs desperately needs: a united front declaring that 2028 belongs to Kogi’s excluded majority, not Bello’s dynasty.
This alliance requires Kogi East recognizing that Kogi West’s 37-year total exclusion represents the most egregious inequity and deserves priority remedy. It requires Kogi West achieving internal consensus around a single candidate rather than the fragmentation that has enabled Central’s dominance. It requires both zones articulating that when Kogi West finally governs, power will rotate within the zone—among different LGAs—just as Kogi East demonstrated with Ofu, Omala, and Dekina. Most importantly, it requires national attention and support. The APC national leadership should recognize that a state where 76% of LGAs have been systematically excluded or manipulated represents political instability that threatens broader electoral calculations. Media outlets should spotlight the contrast between Nasarawa’s democratic rotation and Kogi’s dynastic concentration. Civil society should mobilize around the principle that one family from one LG does not own an entire state.
Yahaya Bello has done Nigerian democracy a perverse favor: he has stated his dynastic intentions so openly that they cannot be denied, rationalized, or obscured. “Finish your 8 years plus my 8 years, 16 years.” The confession is complete. The insult is undeniable. The challenge is explicit. The question now is whether Kogi’s democratic forces possess the unity, courage, and strategic capability to deliver the consequences such brazenness deserves. Whether 16 LGAs can speak with one voice against one LG’s monopoly. Whether 37 years of exclusion finally generates the political will necessary for restoration.
Twelve years of Okene dominance is already excessive by any standard of equity. Kogi East used three LGAs for their sixteen years; Bello wants one LG for the same duration. The double standard is indefensible. The humiliation is unsustainable. And 2028 cannot come soon enough. History will record whether Nigerian democracy could resist dynastic consolidation when it was declared openly, shamelessly, confidently by a former governor who believed incumbency made him untouchable. Kogi State’s 2028 election is no longer merely about local politics. It is a referendum on whether rotation, equity, and democratic principles mean anything when confronted by raw family ambition. The answer will resonate far beyond Kogi’s borders.
— Yusuf, M.A., PhD
For: Kogi Equity Alliance
kogiequityalliance@outlook.com
