I will not join them to call the meeting of some politicians and pockets of apologists of Governor Yahaya Bello’s government, that took place in Kabba on Saturday 19th October, 2019, as Kogi West Political Forum. With due respect to the personalities present at that meeting, including our royal fathers, I will want to say that Kogi West people are bigger, more refined, more informed more exposed and more tactical than what that audience stood for.
Again, with due respect to all those present at the meeting, they do not possess the authority, whether cultural or political, to issue their communique with the opening phrase – “That the people of Kogi West met…”. Who called the meeting? In the name of which associations or groups? Who did they discuss with? What notice was given, or publicly arrangements were made for the meeting? Who drew the agenda? Yet, the subject matter was “Renegotiating Kogi West Position for 2019”. The summary of their deliberations was “That speakers after speakers ALL (emphasis mine) aligned with Governor Yahaya Bello for second tenure”. What audacity, what hypocrisy, what pretence!
At best, I will term that show a failed All Peoples Congress, APC, Talk Shop.
Of course, the chieftains of APC were complete – the Legislators, Senatorial candidate, appointed Local Government Administrator, Commissioners, foot soldiers, etc. Our royal fathers were there. Not surprising, because they are forced to attend all political gatherings nowadays, like helpless government appointees, including going to Presidential Villa to endorse a sitting Governor for no justifiable reason. Other respected leaders, particularly in Okunland, who they know could be hoodwinked into endorsing Governor Yahaya Bello were duly persuaded to be there. I looked at some of them, and I asked myself whether these ones knew that they were simply being used.
If not sheer hypocrisy, how can a group of people endorse for a second term, a Governor who is nationally and internationally acknowledged as having failed in all facets of governance. While even non-Kogites in all parts of the world are praying God to deliver us from the tyranny, lawlessness and wickedness that we are passing through, our leaders are busy endorsing the Governor. O ma se o (it is a pity). Is it because, APC leaders such as Asiwaju Tinubu, Adams Oshiomole and Abiodun Faleke suddenly changed their narratives on the parlous performance of Yahaya Bello? Is it not bewildering that these honourable men, fathers and grandfathers, have suddenly joined the surrogated Presidency in singing the praises of Yahaya Bello and smiling to the bank? They are feathering their own political and economic nests at the detriment of the lives of the people of the State who are agonising and dying daily as their resources are channelled solely to securing Yahaya Bello in office.
According to our very wise leaders who gathered in Kabba, the Kabba Accord was “hinged on the political calculation of securing the central zone support in 2023 for total power shift”. Whatever that means. May we see the agreement they signed with their almighty Bello, who has the capacity to shift power? How many leaders of the central zone were witnesses to the agreement? Once again, o ma se o. If Bello wins the coming election, (may the God of the dehumanised masses of Kogi State forbid), where do the wise men of Kogi West expect him to throw Edward Onoja to? We all know that the man had just been made Deputy Governor at the cost of Constitutional travesty, and is also the running mate. So, Kogi West will make him to continue as Deputy Governor for third term or they will relocate him from the State. A ten-year old child in Kogi knows better.
In any case, Kogi East is determined to support their own, just as the Central have always supported their own. The core well-meaning and well-reasoning citizens of Kogi West are going with Musa Wada and Samuel Aro. No power shift can work in Kogi without the cooperation of Kogi East, who are about the number of the West and Central put together, and who are not as lucky as the rest of us in terms of Local Government creation and constituency delineation, as we all know.
Our leaders may as well believe that Yahaya Bello has become invincible because he apparently has the backing of the Presidency. It may be true that he has mesmerised his political followers beyond reasoning. He may have turned our youths to drug addicts, gun runners and killer squads. He may have pocketed the Legislature and arms-twisted the Judiciary, using the Federal might, but, he cannot succeed in killing the spirits of those of us who know that the triumph of the wicked is but for a short time. He cannot pocket, mesmerise or arm-twist the Almighty God. He will deliver us from Yahaya Bello and his apologists.
– Shola Adedoyin, a PDP chieftain, wrote from Abuja.
