Between Yahaya Bello and His Armchair, Unrepentant Critics

293
Spread the love

For starters, I want to State categorically that I am not here to hold brief for Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello, I also need to put on record that I am not a sycophant or praise singer, I am just a well-informed journalist and public relations consultant.

This write-up is provoked by the outright misinformation and falsehood being bandied about by certain unscrupulous elements about the performance of Alh. Yahaya Bello, to this end. Therefore, I have at my disposal some unassailable facts and figures about the numerous achievements of governor Yahaya Bello in office.

To start with, Kogi state has a population of over four million people, the majority of which are not civil servants and pensioners, they are scattered in about six sectors of the economy, namely, Agriculture, Health, Trade and Industry, Education, Civil service system and mineral and water resources. At this juncture, it is instructive to know that governance at any level is not a tea party, it takes commitment, political will, bravery and knowledge to be able to navigate the murky waters of governance so that these sectors are not left unattended to.

To go further, we need to remind ourselves of our past before we arrived where we are today, recall that the immediate past governor of Kogi state, governor Idris Ichala Wada, left behind a chaotic and insecure state and a civil service system that was bedeviled with endemic corruption, indolence,and disenchantment.

On the eve of his departure from office, after he was rejected at the polls, he owed civil servants several months of unpaid salary and emoluments, to crown it all, he was already paying percentage salaries at the local government level and teaching service system.

Recall too that he left behind a humongous debt liability of N500,000,000 monthly being deducted at source from the merger allocation accruing to the state from Abuja, he also left behind an indolent and unproductive civil servants who were just collecting salaries for doing nothing to grow the economy of the State beyond the level of civil service sector, it is  on record that our dynamic and visionary governor, armed with a new direction blueprint, was able to roll back all these liabilities bequeathed to him by Idris Ichala Wada.

Governor Yahaya Bello moved swiftly to stabilize the State and the polity. He further negotiated with the organized labour to clear three months backlog of salaries left behind by Idris Ichala Wada Within the past two and a half years in office, governor Yahaya Bello has been able to tackle security issues, corruption in the civil service system and also made giant strides in other sectors of the economy, I used to laugh when some armchair critics used to misinform the general public that governor Yahaya Bello is a total failure in office, I want to present unassailable facts and figures to disprove these armchair critics.

Within the short period of this government, Alhaji Yahaya Bello has been able to secure the state from the hands of kidnappers, armed robbers, ritualists and other violent criminals. This yeoman achievement attracted the inspector general of police who gave the governor an award as the best governor on security, recall too that recently Kogi State was adjudged as one of the three safest states in Nigeria, the governor spent heavily to achieve these for the state.

Furthermore, the governor was able to achieve success in environmental and sanitation management, transportation, agriculture, health, education and infrastructural development. I may not be able to give you a highlight of these achievements on this platform, on the flip side, there are genuine complaints that the governor has fallen short of our expectations in the areas of welfare of workers and pensioners, but let me remind all of us that Kogi is not the only state that is lagging in the payment of salaries and pension as Benue, Edo, Osun, Niger and ten other states are also in this  category, but then, we need to know that every sector of the economy are competing for the scarce and meager resources at hand. For example, on infrastructure, the governor has achieved a giant stride to the admiration of the vice president, Yemi Osinbajo who commended the governor during his recent visit to the state.

I want to enjoin the larger society to continue to pray for the success of this government because his failure is our collective failure, enough of this name-calling, abuse, and insults by unscrupulous elements and professional critics.

– Otori Ozigi is a retired public servant, journalist/PR consultant


Spread the love



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *