The Fall of Yahaya Bello; Placing Re-election Above Performance

In a democratic setting, giving the fact that man is socially and psychologically a political animal, two things are paramount: One is performance and that second one is seeking for re-election or second term as its highly regarded to in the Nigerian context.

The concept of performance connotes giving back to the people that voted you into office the basic dividends of democracy aimed at improving their socio-economic lives and also building their politico, biological and social confident that the have the right man at the helm of affairs and are happy to have made the right choice and will be willing to repeat such if the need arises again.

Secondly, the concept of re-election connotes an elected leader seeking to be elected for another term to continue the works he has started. The choice of him continuing in such office is depended mostly on what actually is on he has done on ground as against mere propaganda and how actually the people who are the actual owner of the mandate feel, see and appreciate that he has positively affected their life. It is an arena at the complete prerogative of the people.

Haven stated this above, the two concept, Performance and Re-electon must be ideological and sequentially arranged. Performance before re-election, not the other way. You must perform or be seen to be a performer by the people before you seek for re-election. The only secret to re-election is performance not use of money-politics or thuggery aimed a coercing the people to vote.

In Kogi state, reverse is the political and social equation as the present administration consciously decided to place re-election as a topmost priority as against performance. When the present administration came on board, it gave the people the impression that it was a government that is geared towards providing the most needed ‘change’ via its New Direction blueprint for physical and verifiable performances that is aimed at improving the socio-economic lifestyle of the people.

The destruction of the major roundabouts in the state capital was pointer toward that direction. Also, the screening of state government workers to weed out ghost workers and reduce the state wage bill was also a pointer that the state was about to move from its socio-economic and political redundant state to a new era of sustainable socio- economic paradigm.

But unfortunately, one,two, three… months passed up to a year with no visible result seen. The administration has drifted from performance to seeking for re-election, as situation whereby government and governance became a project of self interest and manipulative propaganda against the sole objective of governance, which is providing the greater benefit/happiness for the greater majority.

The love for re-election has made the government become a desperado with majority of its projects, policies and plan pointing toward re- election not for the benefit of the masses. For example, the government refused paying civil servants and pensioners their salaries for over a year, systematically retrenched over 20% of the state workforce, but the same government engaged the services of over 1000 political appointees, paying them over 200,000 Naira each plus exotic official cars.

The political appointees were people in which the government thought are political heavyweights that can influence the people of their constituencies to vote for the re-election of Yahaya Bello.

The strategies of purchasing of motorcycle and branded rice and distributing these to every local government in the state in order to convince the poor masses to vote the administration for the second term, instead of a well packaged poverty alleviation programme in the state is pointer toward that direction.

The use of the slogan ‘Enemuneme’ in the eastern senatorial axis, by some known loyalists of the administration of Yahaya Bello, instead of promoting unity among the people of the state is a pointer towards how desperate the administration is toward re- election.

The constant arrests and detention of political activists, opposition leaders, critics, musicians and people who the administration see as hindrance to them in the achievement of heir pursuit for re-election is also a pointer towards the desperado attitude of the government.

The obvious neglect of performance in favor of a desperate move towards re-election has led to wide scale hunger, poverty, disease, insecurity, decaying infrastructures, collapse or imminent collapse of basic and vital sectors of the economy like health, education, social security and grassroots development. This is a practical symptoms and sign of a state heading toward humanitarian crises.

Conclusively, if this administration of Yahaya Bello does not change its mentality from that of seeking for re-election to performance with the aim of re-establishing the confidence of the people on the administration, the idea of second term is just like carrying coal to Newcastle. How can a a government that is been stoned by its people contemplate on seeking for re-election without actually improving the socio-economic life of the people?

As the saying goes; “Qualitative and quantitative performance is a silencer to the opposition and critics in a democratic setting.