The reason why people like Governor Yahaya Bello must remain Governor in Kogi State is not because he has transformed the state into heaven: most importantly, he is the only silent voice people like us that have dreams which have been kicked, beaten, dimmed and tortured by the system that favors only the bourgeoisie is getting challenged.
You may whine all you like about salaries. You may block all your blood because he is not from the dominant ethnic group . You may curse him because to you, he has caused you pains. You’re expressing your own pains and how you feel, it does not define my own life and what I think. So you’re serving your time, nursing your own injury. Within the same place most of you saw comfort, many others die of such comfort. How many of you have relinquished your comfort just for the survival of others? How many of you would give the kidneys of your children to my own children to survive? Survival of the fittest, right?
See right, the way this world is configured, nobody can measure pain to know who’s own is higher. I have seen pain and felt consternation of misery for many years, knowing that regardless of how smart or hardworking I am, for not belonging to the Talakawa hegemony, nothing can happen. If my father is not lucky enough to be born royal into some kingship, I would have no stakes. It is more like a prisoner of success that does not succeed.
Bello brought the only window. The only close window to it. Bello brought the only air that looks like liberation. His coming opened the doors for the sons and daughters of nobody like myself to even see that there is a “possibility” in our dreams.
Check the PDP result:
Engineer Wada Musa came first with 748 votes. His brother-in-law, son of the the man he married her sister, Abubakar Idris came Second with 710 votes. The elder brother of Engineer Wada came third with 350 something, that rest figure is his business, because I didn’t even expect any form of monetary inducement to get him a single vote.
Dino and the rest came to mark register.
Here is the point:
How can it be that those who can further my own dreams come from just one family? It is a tree.
These three people can only argue for who would wear the crown. The spoils of the crown is all their rights and within their family. They are the gatekeepers.
Ibro, the Governor who made his in-law Governor that his in-law brought his younger brother to aspire to be Governor against his in-laws son cannot ignore the “in-law angle”. He is still the father of Asmau, the beautiful woman who married Engr Wada that has refused to let us the young people see our future.
How can anyone explain to us that the greatness of a Kogi State lies within one family that is a political empire? You know the sad story, they come from the same understanding. The structures are the same. Those who would benefit are the same. Those who would call the shots are the same.
Those who would decide what happens are the same.
In fact, the implication of this is that everything and everyone who is getting a political limelight for the next 4 years is getting under the grass.
Do you all think this has anything to do with Bello?
How? How so sad that they make this about Kogites. It is more like how I mocked those who clapped for Gbemisola Saraki’s appointment and mocked Bukola Saraki’s political exile. It is not about the personalities. It is about “The Sarakis”. Would Gbemisola be sick tomorrow without Bukola spending all he has stolen on her for survival? Most of us, YOU AND I, don’t have the privilege (basic) that the Wadas have.
I do not have up to N150,000 in my account as I speak, God is my witness, but the Wadas shared motorcycles costing about N250,000 and an additional N300,000 per head on a delegate just to win the primaries. They targeted 2500 plus persons. Engr Wada spent. Idris Wada spent. Abubakar Ibrahim spent. Do you think this isn’t a joint investment? Would Ex Gov Wada be broke when his younger brother is in power? Would Abubakar ever ever ever be broke?
Then you talk to me about taking peanuts from Bello to praise sing. Why not? Is it the Wadas I would praise sing? Their family ruled Kogi State for 13 years collectively. What did they leave for someone like myself to fall back on after working jobs and sleeping half mast for years to graduate from the university?
Most importantly, for the impatient ones, they joined thuggery and the omawede-political-hand-bag followership. Of course, some of you were lucky to have benefited from their political Philanthropy of dashing jobs to intelligent chaps, hiring them as social media support group to sponsor their political wealth accumulation. How many of you live close to how they live on the civil service or federal government Mediocre life you live? No offense. The civil service is a socialist plan. We have a mixed economy, it means it is not for everyone.
Let us leave that. You see this a Bello? I will collect all the ebbs of peanut and sycophant as well.
Besides this intimidation of our future, what about being in power because of my religious faith?
Under Governor Idris (Ibro) and Governor Wada, whose family tree has produced another Engr Wada, how many Christians had prime positions in Kogi Government? In fact, in your very face, there is a Government House Mosque right at the gate but it would take another 20 years for Bello to plant a Government House Chapel. Do you know the Chapel always had a chaplain without a Chapel to pray in? That means it was even planned for, but deliberately ignored because of religious gangterism. Thus aspect of our lives they don’t like to discuss it, but it is real.
Victor Adoji, the Christian who even seemed refined amongst the aspirants of PDP did not come an inch close because within the ranks of their conspiracy, they would not allow someone of his ilk. If his family background did not disqualify him, his religion would.
Don’t talk to me about dropping any religious war, you must be mad if you think so. My grand father was a Muslim who raised my father as a Christian. This is the egalitarian society I seek. Of course Christians voted in the primaries, we know. But who controls the structures?
So a Bello that gave me a Chapel in Government House in a religiously divided country like ours, I should because of what some of you say not to follow him? Between your hunger and my survival as a human, which should I follow?
This yarn, we would be yarning it. We, me and you are the victims.
The Bello you think you want to even remove has joined their class forever. He would know no suffer. As an elite, he is protected from the shocks you and I are exposed to. The difference between Bello and them is that he is not a family tree empire. He is not a bigot. He is not someone who is going to retire my dreams, our dreams, the dreams of the over 1.8m young Kogi people.
Haba, power dey scratch young people for body? Wetin we do? Wetin we do una?
I write this from the intern of my soul. It is my reality. I am the victim, not Wada, not Wada again, not Ibro.
– Promise Emmanuel (Kogi Rebel) writes from Lokoja.
