The overwhelming response to the first part of this article published barely a month ago coupled with the inability of governor Wada’s media team to make a rejoinder to the facts I vented in that discourse is a solid testimony to the high level of discontentment and disenchantment of the Kogi people with the current government of Kogi State.
I am not in anyway bothered by the boorish replies I got via phone calls and SMS from the sympathizers of the Wada government, but absolutely underwhelmed by the lumpish disposition of the governor’s official online vuvuzelas lucidly demonstrated in their sordid feedbacks and flagrant but shameless ululations on my Facebook timeline. When the policies and actions of a governor and a government becomes sterile and indefensible, its spokesmen and protagonists will resort to vulgarity. It is a normal phenomenon.
I would like to thank all those who audaciously displayed their petulance and frustration on my publication on this topic. I am not taken aback as that is what I expect from die-hard acolytes and minions of an unresponsive governor and a failed government.
Let me once again be fair with Wada in my analysis of his personality and ability to handle assigned roles. Captain Idris Wada is a seasoned pilot. As an intelligent and articulate personality, he has taught and trained ample pilots who graduated from the aviation school in Zaria. In fact, Wada can be likened to a professor in his profession as a pilot. I revere his intellectual sagacity and grammatical prowess each time I hear him speak on radio and television. But however, the issue of Kogi State is beyond professional aviation. It is about the welfare of every indigene or bona fide member of our great but raped and debased social formation which comprises over 3 million people of divergent ethnic extractions.
Just like I have opined myriad of times in my previous articles on the current government in Kogi State, governor Wada is not ordinarily a failed governor, but a monumental fiasco as far as governance is concerned. His government is a calamity of epic magnitude.
Without mincing words, the very day the PDP conducted its gubernatorial primaries and declared Wada as the winner was the day Audu won the governorship election in Kogi State. Immediately Wada was confirmed winner of the PDP governorship primaries, I sent text message to Prince Audu in London where he went on recess congratulating and welcoming him back to Lugard House. With Wada as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, the forthcoming election is a walkover for Prince Abubakar Audu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Myriad of misfortunes have bedeviled Kogi State and its people under this clueless governor. Let me use the issue of workers’ welfare as a point of departure for this discourse. It is under governor Wada that the Kogi workers started earning what can be best described as “Onion Salaries”. When you cut an onion, what comes out of your eyes is nothing but tears. In the same vein, under Wada’s tutelage as governor, all Kogi workers would always shed tears each time they get their monthly salaries because it is either half, thirty percent, twenty percent, or even ten percent of their monthly earnings. This is bothersome, pitiable, as it is lamentable. To put an end to this phenomenon of onion salaries, Kogi workers will have to cast their votes against the PDP and oust Wada.
On agriculture, Wada embarked on what his government termed “Agricultural Transformation Agenda”. Rather than produce food to feed the Kogi people, Wada’s agricultural programme ended up breeding hunger in the land. Rather than being a transformation agenda, what governor Wada ended up giving the Kogi people is a deformation agenda.
Under this programme, the Kogi State government embarked on the cultivation of cassava and rice in a number of locations in Kogi State. Odu in Dekina Local Government Area is one of the locations of Wada’s cassava farm. Billions of naira was sunk into the white elephant project but nothing to show for it. Governor Wada being serious with his cassava project went as far as ordering the evacuation of all the domestic animals particularly the goats in all parts of Odu so they would not do any damage to his cassava farm. Ample owners of goats all over Odu have kept wailing since then as some have even vowed never to forgive Wada over some of their goats which were lost in the process of being forcefully evacuated from their homes by Wada. Up till today, Wada’s cassava and rice are no where to be found in any of the markets in Kogi State.
Now to the issue of Kogi’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). Under governor Wada, Kogi State generate an IGR of 500 million naira every month. In his 46 months old administration, Captain Wada’s government has garnered an IGR of 23 billion naira and yet, the Kogi State government in the previous year, has collected a bond of 20 billion naira and recently, another loan of 10 billion naira. Only God knows what all these billions are being used for in Kogi. Governor Wada has nothing to show for it. Nothing has changed in Kogi under this governor.
On health, MDG funds have been spent building clinics which are never furnished nor equipped with medical facilities. Almost all the clinics built by Wada’s government in ample communities in Kogi State are abandoned in bushes as some are being occupied by fugitives and psychopaths. The one in Ikpokejo, a community adjacent Umomi in Ofu Local Government Area is a typical example. This is sickening.
One of the respondents of my previous article on this topic affirmed that the governor cannot change the fortunes of the people of the State in a single tenure of 4 years. My question to him is what programme does Wada’s administration have in place that will bring forth development and economic prosperity for the people of Kogi if given a second chance? Has Wada’s government formulated any policy aimed at eviscerating unemployment and creating jobs for our teeming youthful population? What about our social hygiene which corruption in Kogi SUBEB and the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs has laid prostrate? There is nothing visible to show the people that there will be light at the end of the tunnel.
Virtually everyone in Kogi is in a state of despondency, because time and time again, those whom the people have entrusted to bring social and economic progress have ended up raping and heisting the state treasury, with legion of investments which include Agura Hotel and estates in Abuja, Passenger and Cargo Airlines which are operational in Ghana, and countless investments in Europe, United States, and other parts of the world. Our watchdog has convoked a meal off the bone we collectively hung on its neck for safekeeping. The mouse we depended on for the security of our collective pieces of fish, has devoured not only the fish, but has also irredeemably corroded our trust in his goodwill.
As it stands, 500 million naira is being deducted every month from monthly allocations meant for the 21 Local Governments in Kogi State. To say the least, Wada’s government has committed a progressive range of unpardonable blasphemies against justice, equity, and good conscience. The daylight but deregulated heist of our collective patrimony under this administration is gargantuan and has midwifed abject poverty in the land. Now is the time for the Kogi electorate to do the right thing – vote out Wada and bring on board the politically trendy but industrious Prince Abubakar Audu who remains the man with the capacity and political will to bring about the positive change we need in Kogi State.
In my estimation, politics should have some philosophy, and should not be abandoned to the whims and caprices of rapacious and egocentric unflappability and hedonism. Plato essayed in his “REPUBLIC” to bridge any conceptual chasm between politics and philosophy. Paraphrasing these thoughts many centuries later, Abraham Lincoln opined that those who desire to rule men must arm themselves with the power that wisdom and knowledge gives. Philosophers should become kings or kings become philosophers.
This Platonic insight has not lost its touch in our world today. Governor Wada from the outset should have got wedded to justice and selflessness which are the fundamental basics of ethics which impregnates every responsible politicking. But since he has failed to do so, the Kogi electorate is ready to give him a handsome reward of retirement from politics come 21st November. The people of Kogi remain the ultimate sovereign and repositories of power. We will no longer allow our dear State and people suffer more desecrations in the hands of misfits and unresponsive government.
With all these misfortunes under Wada’s failed government, the APC guber candidate, Prince Abubakar Audu hold all the aces in the forthcoming gubernatorial election.
– Odaudu Joel Minister is the President and Founder of Confluence Rescue Mission (COREM), a Humanitarian and Good Governance Advocacy Group. He is also the Director of Social Media, Prince Abubakar Audu Campaign Organization.
