Kogi: Political Office Holders as gods

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Have you ever wondered why Kogi state is poor, underdeveloped, unproductive, and pathologically backward and lacking in imagination and creativity? Have you ever wondered why followership in the state is so timid, servile, imbecilic, slow footed and gullible? Have you ever wondered why a people could allow themselves to be so fleeced and yet remain complacent and unquestioning? So many things to wonder about in Kogi state that you sometime wonder whether we are human. Simply incredible set of human beings.

The piece is not an abandonment of the conviction that Kogi state is not working and not workable. It is much deeper than that.

This piece is set to examine one of the major factors militating against progress and development. The piece is set to examine the fact that those who found themselves in the commanding heights of leadership in Kogi state have automatically transform themselves to semi-gods the moment they get power and position.

For now, Kogi state office holders are in the main very arrogant, pompous, and irritatingly proud and disrespectful. Let me hasten to say that there are a few exceptions, the reason I qualify the declaration with the phrase ‘in the main’.

The worst culprit is the State Governor who occupy the all powerful seat in the state capital. You wonder why this is so. But the reason is not far fetched. The office of the governor is not responsible or accountable to anybody. The State Governor have no respect for all his aides including his commissioners, advisers, consultants and so-called assistants whether Senior, Special or ordinary. It is not just because those officials working under the governor are his/her appointees, but more than that, because there is unexplainable timidity and servitude in the character of the Nigerian animal. Because of shortage of almost everything in the land except poverty and prostitutes, any Nigerian that is lucky to be appointed commissioner or adviser believes that his many sleepless nights in the grove of the pastor, imam or babalawo have paid off. He or she is therefore compelled to turn self to an unquestioning stooge in order to keep the position which thousands of others in his or her constituency are waiting in the wings to grab.

At Executive meetings where major decisions about the welfare of constituents are discussed there is hardly any debate. The governor does all the talking and the Executive members are reduced to laughable rubber stamp.

Political parties are used only before elections and during elections. The moment the governor emerges, the political party is thrown into the dustbin or at best left on the rack to be dusted up in preparation for another election couple of years down the line. In the days of yore leaders of the NPC, NCNC and the Action Group wielded uncommon powers and control over their elected officials and thus commanded accountability.

Nowadays there is nobody to be accountable to. The electorates have been thoroughly and deliberately paralysed with poverty and they have become voiceless and helpless. Labour Unions are in disarray and Student Unionism has been consumed by huge bribes and cultism. The Media still wields some power and influence but because office holders know that the Press can only bark with hardly any teeth in their gums, it is largely ignored.

Judiciary has made a nuisance of itself and has thus lost credibility; it has become a willing tool in the hands of thieving office holders.

Churches and Mosques and such other exponents of organised religions have lost focus and they too have been corrupted beyond recognition.

With this scenario, the Office holder sees nobody to moderate his excesses and thus becomes a monster that everybody must fear and worship.There are instances where Commissioners and top office holders in their State must not dress in suits or agbadas when their oga, the Governor chooses to wear such to the office or for occasions, For the females, they dare not ‘compete’ with Madam First Lady either in dressing or in make up.

This is the case with a Governor who will spend about 30% on the road that is NOT seen, and the 70 per cent that disappears in the pipe!

Let me quickly repeat that this characterization does NOT apply to all civilian governors or office holders, but it does apply to the majority amongst whom are nose-in-the-air stiff necked buffoons who play god because they find themselves in positions of power and authority and who believe that they are unaccountable and unanswerable.

Kogi state will not progress with the mindset of office holders who play god and with political appointees who remain ridiculously timid and stupid.We have a deputy governors that is treated like toilet cleaning brush by the governors.

For Kogi state to make progress, public office holders must see themselves as mere first among equals and their positions as a call to service, while their supporters and people under them must hold their leaders accountable and removed from the horses on which they have installed themselves.

Kogi state is presently in dire straits and for those proclaiming otherwise, the time of deception is over.

The situation in Kogi state demands fervent prayers for better times to be restored in view of the anguish in the land and for those trying to play God, the reward for this inglorious venture is damnation. It with ultimately end well the intrigue and contrived confusion of the present notwithstanding.

– Posi Botun
A concerned Kogite


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