By Comrade Danfulani Lukman Ohinoyi
For generations, the rainy season was a period market men and women at Ohu Bariki Market in Kogi Central approached with anxiety.
Ohu Bariki, widely regarded as one of the busiest and largest markets in Kogi Central, was once synonymous with mud, stagnant water and difficult access whenever the rains came. What should have been a thriving centre of commerce often became a difficult terrain for traders, customers and transporters.
The situation was particularly challenging for traders whose shops were exposed to flooding. Heavy rainfall could send water into business premises, damaging foodstuffs, clothing, household items and other merchandise worth millions of naira.
For customers, the experience was equally frustrating. Moving around the market after rainfall could mean navigating through muddy and waterlogged paths, making shopping unnecessarily difficult and discouraging commercial activities.
But that narrative began to change with the administration of former Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello.
Under Bello’s administration, roads within the market and roads leading to the market square were constructed, addressing one of the longstanding infrastructure challenges confronting traders and residents in the area.
The intervention was more than the construction of roads. It represented an investment in commerce, movement and the economic survival of thousands of people whose livelihoods depend on the market.
With improved road access, traders could move their goods more easily, customers could access the market with less difficulty, and transportation became more convenient. More importantly, the intervention helped address the perennial accessibility problems that became particularly severe during the rainy season.
For the ordinary trader, the impact of such infrastructure is not measured merely in kilometres of road constructed. It is measured in goods saved from damage, customers gained, transportation made easier and business days no longer lost to bad weather.
This is where the argument about Yahaya Bello’s record becomes significant.
Development is sometimes remembered through major projects and grand announcements, but its deepest impact is often found in places where ordinary people conduct their daily businesses.
At Ohu Bariki, the story is about traders who once worried about rain disrupting their businesses and customers who once struggled through muddy pathways to buy what they needed.
Today, the market’s improved accessibility provides a tangible reminder of what targeted infrastructure can mean to grassroots commerce.
As the political conversation ahead of 2027 increasingly turns toward experience, capacity and the ability to deliver, the Ohu Bariki experience offers Kogi Central another perspective: leadership should not only be judged by what happens in government offices, but by what changes in the places where ordinary people live, trade and earn their daily bread.
For many traders of Ohu Bariki, the memory of rainy-season hardship remains fresh. And so does the memory of the intervention that helped change it.
Yahaya Bello governed. He made interventions. The people remember.
2027: Let Experience Speak. Let Kogi Central Rise.
– Comrade Danfulani Lukman Ohinoyi writes from Okene.
