Considering the comprehensive tragedy that has befallen Kogi State since January 2016, the panjandra of the All Progressives Congress (APC) must congratulate themselves on how effectively they have played Russian roulette with the fate of Kogi State.
The state was poised to enter a new era of politics and development as a result of the governorship election of November 2015 in which the APC’s Abubakar Audu/James Abiodun Faleke had virtually coasted to victory. But seizing upon the death of Prince Audu and the simple administrative fact that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was yet to formally declare the victory, the victorious APC nevertheless exhumed a legal sleight of hand, one of a series of judicial and legislative firsts, to foist an unprepared and untested man on the state as chief executive. That man was Yahaya Bello, alias Fairplus, a politician so wet behind the ears it is safe to conclude he is bewildered by power and office, if not by his own thin and shrill shadow.
Since last year, the state has been in turmoil, convulsed by internal dissension within the ruling party, and by bitter and acrimonious relationship between the executive and legislative branch. That acrimony constantly spilled over, month after month, sometimes manifesting in salary controversies, and at other times in labour union upheavals. The troubles reached a new peak last week when the state’s chief executive, thinking he had successfully disguised his motives and objectives, masterminded a legislative furore that tore the House of Assembly apart and brought derision upon the state. How and why the governor and his aides felt no sense of shame or remorse as the struggle assumed national significance is hard to explain.
The struggle was supposed to be a storm in a tea cup. But the governor managed to give it wider significance. On assumption of office, the governor and his team had plotted the downfall of the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Lawal Momoh-Jimoh. To accomplish that task and enthrone a new speaker, Imam Umar, one of the enforcers deployed for that unwholesome task was the assemblyman from Igalamela-Odolu constituency, Hon Friday Sani. Barely a year and a half down the line, both Speaker Imam and Hon Sani, perhaps suffocating under the peevish and puerile leadership of Mr Bello, and deciding to call their souls their own, attempted to exert their independence from the governor and his team. Exercising independence from a philosopher-king could proceed and end without dire consequences; but doing so under a narrow-minded and visionless leader is fraught with untold peril.
First to be dealt with was Hon Sani, whose suspension was masterminded months ago by the State House. The legislator, however, won a reprieve from the court and was due to be reinstated early last week, an act that drew the ire of the governor and his team. Worse, the Speaker, Hon Imam, having asserted his independence too, decided it was meet and proper to honour the court judgement and reinstate Hon Sani. Thus, last Tuesday, in the presence of indifferent and conniving law enforcement agents, the governor’s aides, and other sundry and freelance enforcers, all hell was let loose in the House of Assembly in actualisation of the governor’s game plan. The governor of course immediately condemned the violence, promising to arrest the hoodlums who perpetrated the act, but no one was fooled. Hon Sani was stripped and beaten, and a few days later, the Speaker himself was forced to resign. Both will tell their stories at the appropriate time, especially the moral of not riding on the back of a tiger.
A few analysts thought the violence and the machinations were connected with the governor’s presentation of a supplementary budget for which he was anxious to receive assent. But other watchers in the state pointed out that it was not expected that anyone sat in that legislature who could dare to oppose the appropriation. It was expected to be passed post haste. So, why were the two legislative victims unhorsed? The answer was in fact much simpler and farcical than anyone imagined, said analysts. The two victims, they suggested, had to be taught a lesson in how not be independent of the State House. Mr Bello is king, nay, a potentate. No one was expected to forget that. And with his closeness to the presidency, not to say the delicate subterfuge wrought on his behalf by a conniving APC, Mr Bello is believed to be drunk with power when, given his age, he was expected to be drunk with gubernatorial and management ideas. He is leading the state down to ruin, and no one in the state occupies the moral high ground — not the lawmakers, nor his cabinet of mannequins, nor yet the soulless national APC, nor yet the mysterious and now colluding Senator Smart Adeyemi — to reprove the governor and restrain him.
The APC at the national level is of course unfazed by all the brouhaha. It sold its conscience when, by wide-ranging conspiracy and deliberate intention to undermine ethnic and secular values, it foisted Mr Bello on the state. The last thing on the minds of the party’s panjandra was the competence of the youthful governor, or the ‘small’ matter of justice. Now that its decision has proved appalling and damaging to the state, the party has still seemed to be incapable of remorse. It appears to believe that just four years of retrogression in Kogi State should mean nothing in the face of the achievement of the party’s more primary and condemnable goals of preventing the Audu/Faleke tendency from assuming power. Four years, the panjandra think, should give the APC a breathing space to work out how to ensure the supremacy of its ethnic and sectarian agenda. Retrogression is simply nothing but collateral damage, a small price, in their estimation, to be paid for their presumptuousness in playing God.
