Happy 25th birthday, my beloved Kogi State. You always have my best wishes to blossom and bear productive fruits.
During late Chief Gani Fawehinmi 60th birthday in 1998. In affirmation of his unprecedented contribution to ensure good governance that is refined in transparency, accountability, responsibility to the people with regard for the rule of law in Nigeria, late Chief Gani Fawehinmi was asked a question on what he would have wanted to achieve in his life time?” He was unable to control the tears flowing down his cheek he responded, “My generation has been wasted. I am fighting to prevent the next generation from being wasted”. 18 years after, his fear has been confirmed with glaring evidence in the lives of young Nigerians. The kind of loyalty we are experiencing in Kogi State political circus in particular is however turning into something evil which, if not checked, has the potential to derail us from the democratic track we are on in moving Kogi forward. And for me this evil is more dangerous to our democracy than plotting a military coup. This evil is what we know as sycophancy and it been champion by the youth, the acclaimed leaders of tomorrow, the young generation full of energy and vigour.
I had the chance to interact with Mr. Tunde Soluyi, a retired stock broker and a political analyst who reside in Lagos. I asked him what he considers to be the mainspring of underdevelopment in kogi state. A solid political analyst as he is, he minced no words and answered. I consider sycophancy in our socio-economic and political life as the biggest threat we face in shaping and moving Kogi State forward. He continued, the young generations in Kogi State are just licking the shoes of authority in the name of loyalty; some to score personal goals but the majority to undermine others. This is my fear. Having reflected on his statement I could only take solace with a deep sigh.
Today there exist a thin line between loyalty and sycophancy to such an extent that the two seem to be synonymous with each other. Kogi youth no longer mean what they say, and say what they mean. Sycophancy is a 21st Century enemy to our democracy! Today in our political development, the supposed leaders of tomorrow in Kogi state say and act just to get the attention of the powers that be for their own personal gains. In fact, our politics is sadly infected with quintessential professionals who have the habit of singing hosannas when they really mean crucify him.
In Kogi State you will see youths who supported and campaigned for Capt. Idris Wada insulting that same Wada on social media because they have cross carpet and I keep asking myself; what is happening to us Kogi youth? Do we really have conscience? Why do we see politics as the only mineral resource we can exploit? What has really changed? Because the present administration is barely 7 months, is it hunger? Have we lost direction? Or is it because we don’t have a second address aside been a political hallelujah boys to any government in power? I now realized that we think our main weapon to achieve laurels is to effectively lick the boots of leaders at the right place and time. From being a self appointed media/cameraman to the government (while the government has its own media team) to been a social media voltron, from Stella Obasanjo’s library to the government house, from one commissioner office to another, from SSA office to SA officer, from Chief of staff office to DG protocol`s office, we have all petered into gossip, slavish and virtually sycophantic public address systems for the leadership of the state.
In our social, political and economic developmental process today, we have seen varying degrees or levels of sycophancy institutionalizing into concrete magnitude, having direction and effect on our identity by the youth, and succeeding mainly in a strong, perpetual, powerful and virtually unchallengeable unbridled wielding of political, social or economic power and authority. It behooves on our state leaders to be wary of the sycophants clothed in the colours of the loyalists and be extremely mindful of the strong derogatory concept that sycophancy connotes. We need to be strong on political sycophancy and take every step to discourage such grossly disturbing instances of ingratiating behaviour anaemic to democratic sustenance. Of course political loyalty is extremely vital, but it should not be allowed to mutate into unashamed genuflection that has the potency to undermine kogi’s developmental ascension. It is in our collective interest to vanguard against the evil sycophancy. Let us be concerned about the high level of unquestioning loyalty feuding into our social, political, economic and cultural fibers if we really meant well for the sustenance of our dear state.
We need to see this as a sign of danger to the prospect of kogi state. The danger is that this sort of behaviour seeks to suppress dissent within the leadership and in the long term undermine our democratic chance in the state. At this critical juncture in the life of kogi state, we certainly do not need such inexplicable political grovel.
Any experienced politician or leader can differentiate between loyalty and sycophancy and we should be bold enough to stem sycophancy out of our ways of life. We should avoid entertaining such behaviours for one day because these same elements will mount the podium to declare that we have all been reduced to political sycophants. Effective leadership in our democratic process does not need flatterers and genuflectors to achieve it. Let us do our best to eliminate this evil or else it will eliminate good and democratic governance from the state and the price we will pay for it can be very disastrous. Let us accept that the mix between democracy, development and sycophancy is very bad and inhuman for any society and Kogi State is no exception, I earnestly hope that for the love of Kogi State we the youth will heed to these and I also ask God Almighty to grant us the wisdom to fight this evil which is more deadly to governance than military coup plotters.
Thank you all.
– Habib Omachile Rabbiu
