The Dynamism of Kogi Politics by Onogwu Muhammed

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Leadership is partly a matter of character, partly intellect, partly organization, and partly what Machiavelli called “fortuna,” the mysterious interaction of fate and chance.

To address more effectively the increasingly intolerable inequalities in the human condition, in keeping with the novel reality of an emerging “global conscience,” and to prompt a common response to the new economic and income inequality and threats of poverty to the well-being of the people form parts of what the leaders should deliver. Each of these tasks was, and remains seventeen years later, monumental in scope in some other societies. Together, they serve as the litmus test of Kogi’s ability to lead its own people democratically. The enormity of this historical test necessarily leads to a more pointed inquiry: how did Kogi’s first three democratically elected governors interpret the essence of the new era (democratic rebirth in the state and Nigeria at large)? Were they guided by a historically relevant vision, and did they pursue a coherent strategy? Did they leave the state in better or worse shape than they met it?

Moreover, Kogites need to ask themselves whether Kogi society is guided by values, and its government structured in a manner, congenial to effective long-term national leadership and in delivering the eudemonia of democratic good to its people. And do they understand the historical moment in which their state find itself acting against all forces of development? The legacies of each of the three governors of Kogi state since the return of democracy to the country are uneasy dichotomies; consisting of positive and negative antecedents.

At this stage, suffice it to say that the first Executive governor of Kogi state late Prince Abubakar Audu was the most experienced and financially skilful but was not guided by any bold vision at a very unconventional historic moment to fast track the state’s economic development beyond the megalomaniac microscopic views at the galleries of praise-singing parasites. Audu was a man who believed the best of things can only come out through him and made people to belief him in that manner.

In history, Late Prince Audu had the freest administration without any litigation against his government, opportunity he would have explore to do more than he did as governor before he was voted out in 2003. The second Executive governor Alhaji Ibrahim Idris seemed to be the brightest and most futuristic during whose reign different sources of revenues, apart from the usual allocation from the federation account flew into the state’s coffer simultaneously, but he lacked strategic consistency in the use of these resources; frittered it in conspicuous thievery and squandermania.

One of the greatest Achilles hills of Ibrahim Idris’ government was the overwhelming legal institutions against him by his predecessor upon which huge amount of Kogi resources was expended. The third democratically elected governor of Kogi State, Capt Idris Wada had strong gut instincts, managerial acumen to usher the state into the new frontier of development but no knowledge of indigenous political complexities to pull the people together and a temperament prone to dogmatic formulations. Just like Alhaji Ibrahim Idris’ administration, Capt Idris Wada was confronted with both pre and post election litigations in which many of them ended at the Supreme Court. Apart from litigations hindrances, Wada’s closest allies were not helping him to deliver on the mandate at hand rather, concentrated their energies in winning the next election.

In the same dismal fashion, the fourth executive governor of kogi state, Alh Yahaya Bello is also in the web of political litigations. From the angle of spirituality and from those who believe in the natural occurrences, Yahaya Bello’s emergence as governor of kogi state was divine but remained a political permutation amongst the political businessmen. At birth, and apart from other suits filed against him at the High Court, the virgin administration of Yahaya Bello has the following petitions to contend with;

(1) Wada-Awoniyi/PDP versus INEC/Governor Alh Yahaya Bello.

(2) Faleke vs INEC and Governor Yahaya Bello.

(3) PPA vs INEC and Governor Yahaya Bello.

(4) ADC VS INEC and Governor Yahaya Bello.

(5) Akogu Inuwa vs Governor Alh Yahaya Bello.

Since 2003, this has become the dynamism of politics in kogi state, turning it into a bazaar for the legal profession under this ideological tectonic upheaval. In defence of all these petitions, Yahaya Bello will use state’s resources that would have been converted to the development of the state while the petitioners ended up poorer than they were if the judgements weren’t in their favours with the overall consequence being that the state, instead of moving forward developmentally continue to remain underdeveloped with gargantuan mark of extreme poverty as a well-known insignia.

A less romanticized account of what happened is the necessary point of departure for our people to understanding the novel dilemmas the ‘confluence of opportunities’ come to face in the hands of unforgiving political actors and the difficulty of interpreting the consequences they always leave behind inform of poverty, developmental stagnation, decay infrastructure and so on in the wake of the state’s natural status as the most naturally endowed in Nigeria. The culmination of a series of these events, setbacks, errors, and actions from inside and outside the State that is cumulatively sweeping away an increasingly promising asset of the state at the altar of political egoistical need to be addressed in a matter of urgency. You can’t shoulder the position of leadership without the spirit of forgiveness and the understanding of the fact that God chooses leaders and gives power to which He wants. Unending litigation against the sitting government amounts to huge distraction and waste of public resources with underdevelopment as a predictable outcome. Not until our political actors change this dynamism of self-centred and litigation-engaged politicking can our state come close to development.

– Onogwu Isah Muhammed
Lokoja, Kogi State.
@onogwuMuha


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