To many, Governor Yahaya Bello was born into affluence. He had everything from birth into when he made it big as a businessman. He got everything he wanted.
But all that is a ruse. He was born into a not-comfortable home. His dad died and his late mum was left with the uneasy task of raising him and his siblings in Agassa. He saw life at that level. He knew what it is to be beaten by rain when returning from the farm or when hawking.
So when he saw that Sugarcane hawker in the torrent of rain waters, he could relate well with that discomforting reality. Beaten by rain on the outside and the rain of hunger from the inside. And then cladding a little child to a back which only strength is the determination of the spine to keep on the journey of life.
But the poor woman met a man who had seen both sides of life. Do I think every wealthy man or woman who had suffered before succeeding has the milk of mercy? Only a man disconnected from the street would think so.
There were many who were drenched in the rough waters of poverty but became an unconscious Lords when their kernel were cracked for them by fate. They forget the past and create their own comfort zone without thinking of their former poverty ring members.
So Yahaya Bello is a special breed who has love for mankind.
When he saw the sugercane girl, his heart was touched by the memories of Agassa. He stopped his driver and took the girl to his wife and that was the beginning of her redemption. Her story has changed.
She received the Bello touch and her live has now witnessed a turnaround and transformation.
The story is blazing and gracing the social media like a Trojan, but it is beyond the benevolent Yahaya Bello. It is about activating the Bello in us all.
We need to tap our conscience and awake the benevolence in everyone of us. We don’t have to be as comfortable as GYB before we act that way.
To the Governor, we are not surprised. We will only be surprised if you stop changing lives.
To the rest of us: Where is the Bello in you?
– Kingsley Femi Fanwo
