The whole scenario caught me in silence. It has added to the litany of literature, which epitomized the relationship between love and hate is like two sides of the same coin. A very thin line exist.
Friday’s event at the Lokoja central mosque reversed my memory back to when Yahaya Bello came to the mosque couple of days after he took his oath of office. Emotions where rife in a positive sensation.
Cheerfully! People long and waited to see this young and vibrant governor who’s ascendancy to the political throne is believed to be euphemistically divined, what I will call a divine democracy. ( a theory found only in kogi state)
Immediately he entered the mosque and rose his right hand with his index finger on the zenith, a sign that signifies oneness of Allah. The people, then responded with joy, enthusiasm and were overwhelmed. Some chorused ‘Allahu Akbar’, others chanted ‘Sai Kayi’ and some roared ‘Allah ne ya ba’ka’. All these were symptoms of love, happiness, contentment and merriment on the belief that the challenges they encountered in the previous regime will be history, but little did they know that the worse is in the offing.
More than 8 months after, thus yesterday, Gov Bello returned to the mosque. This time, it was awful, it was a mismatched. The people are enraged not because of their hatred for Him, but basking in the euphoria of being frustrated of their basic needs. Their feeding, clothes and shelter, are mostly tied to the monthly salary which they are still queuing for 8 months to be paid. Their expectations is dwarfed.
The hype of this frustration got people to the cleric’s turtle neck, who was admonishing and insisted he stop for the commencement of the prayer, since it was almost twenty minutes past the usual time of the prayer. For obvious reasons if the governance currently enjoys goodwill, it won’t have come to this. So pressured the cleric had to succumb. Meanwhile, His Excellency and his entourage were still on their way to the mosque. The prayer commenced, a ra’akat has gone, His Excellency met the second ra’akat, he had to pray outside the mosque. A culture barely seen or heard. When the prayer reached its end, some underwhelmed who didn’t wait for other supplication had to rush outside and started hauling and wailing unprintable objects and names to Bello. A justification of Sigmund Freud’s theory, “frustration sprouts aggression.”
In my subconscious mind, was he not the same person that was gleefully celebrated in the past couple of months?
This is a lesson to all of us, because you are loved by your people does not give you the wherewithal to disregard that height, love is reciprocal. Bello got his own share yesterday and if our leaders do not change their ways, their share will be waiting for them one after the other as the people are getting more enlightened day by day.
– Comrade Maji Isah, a political analyst and critic
