When I got back to Ilorin on January 2nd, after the holidays which I spent in Lokoja, Kogi State, a neighbour of mine who followed the polity of Kogi voraciously since he was interested in the success of the Governor because he is the youngest governor in Nigeria, smiled at me and said “I heard everybody in Kogi is dancing now, Yahaya Bello has cleared all the workers’ salaries so you have nothing bad to say against him anymore.” I smiled back and said “Happy New Year.”
My neighbour heard correctly, the only problem is that the source from which he gathered his information, one of the national dailies, was either deceived or greased into publishing something that was untrue; so what do we call that, alternative facts?
About a year ago, when the new Governor Yahaya Bello was sworn in, I was enthusiastic, and why not? Things had worked out perfectly for him, he did not even need to contest in the elections to become governor. He was young, he seemed dynamic and he was from one of the minority ethnic groups. And also, perhaps most importantly for Kogi State, being the state with some of the most acquiescent citizens in Nigeria, it appeared too easy for a governor to be absolutely loved by his people: all he needed to do were three capital projects spread across the three senatorial districts and prompt payment of salaries and he would become messianic. During his inauguration, in fact, he said it himself, “we will be different by the Grace of God. We must and will be the generation of leaders who made the entirety of Kogi resources work for the entirety of Kogi people.”
Fast forward a year later: many state government workers have been sacked, many legitimate workers are yet to know their fate because they have been forced into a never–ending widening gyre of payless screening exercise that has run from the start of this administration until now, and will probably run till the end of his tenure. There is now such a term as a ‘ghost-pensioner’, an individual who has dedicated 35 years or so of his or her life to the service of his state but is yet unpaid because he or she has not been cleared.
The worst part, as far as I am concerned, of this administration so far is their unencumbered, unapologetic propagation of falsehood.
A week ago, during the debacle about the crowd size at Donald Trump’s inauguration, a new political phrase was coined. Counsellor to the American president, Kellyanne Conway, described the lies peddled by the White House media chief that the audience was the largest to ever witness an inauguration, as alternative facts, “You’re saying it is falsehood. And Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts.”
Interestingly, long before Conway phrased that term, the government of Kogi State led by Yahaya Bello, have been peddling alternative facts all over the media. This meant that it was likelier for my neighbour in Ilorin or friends in Cross River or distant cousins in Kano to hear those alternative facts of full payments of salaries to all Kogi State workers. It is easy to read propaganda on Twitter and Facebook from the governor’s several, several personal minions and sycophants all over social media of how he’s doing such a brilliant job and how everybody in the state is partying and giving testimonies. People outside of Kogi would not hear of the several people who have died because their sole source of livelihood is their monthly salaries which the ‘New Direction’ governor has refused to pay for seven months, for eight months, for the whole time he has been governor. They will not hear of the mass sacking of civil servants for no just cause, civil servants whose credentials are complete, whose appointment letters are intact. They will not hear of the plethora of retirees who the New Direction government has now owed for twelve months: the people who have given everything for the state but at present are being treated as paupers. They will not hear about how a Zenith Bank or an Access Bank account has been forcefully opened for civil servants for salary payments in the state (does the governor have personal business interests in these two banks?) – and how there are only three Access Bank branches in the whole State and how the queue is usually so thick, you could go the bank branch at Gwagwalada – about an hour and a few minutes from Lokoja – make your transactions and go back home to still find the person who was queuing in front of you on the queue.
The pauperisation in Kogi State is so extreme that you only need a drive through town to see it in the eyes of these acquiescent people – wishing that this New Direction was not forcefully thrust upon them.
If you live outside of Kogi, all you will hear are stories of how the ‘White Lion’ commissioned such and such a project and approved such and such amount of monies to be disbursed for the payment of the entirety of the work force. How he surrounds himself with young, dynamic, brilliant individuals and how everyone in Kogi is smiling to the bank and how some are even ‘dying of happiness’ (the Stendahl’s Syndrome or Hyperkulturemia) as they receive their bank alerts.
There are theories, of course. Not long ago, for example, I was having a conversation with a friend and fellow Kogite; he is so absolutely sure that the governor would be forced to improve when the elections draw nearer since he would want to contest for a second term in office. Let us not mince words, however, in sane climes, this last one year of suffering that he has inflicted on the people of Kogi State is enough to destroy his whole political career. The New Direction the young governor is driving Kogi State and Kogi people towards look to be laced with heart attacks, heart breaks, chaos and inevitably, graveyards. The earlier he changes direction, the better for all of us.
– Bomi Ehimony is a writer from Kogi State.
