What system of government are we practicing in Kogi state? I decided to ask this question because after Governor Yahaya Bello’s two years in power. Neither the government or the people seem to know the system of government that it been practiced in the state.
I thought that my state was practicing democracy as a system of government but event that took place last week, as it pertain to the passage of the 2018 budget of the state, left me intellectually, politically and emotionally dumbfounded.
Democracy as a concept of government has it own theoretical as well as its operational theories and in a federal system of government, in which Nigeria is a strong adherent of its principle, the concept of separation of powers for checks and balances is the of the cardinal and well respected constitutional principles. In a layman’s sense, it simply means that the three organs of government should be separate from each other in terms of finance, power and personnel. What happened last week in the state was a childish, nonintellectual and unconstitutional rape on the concept of democracy and the constitution. Budget presentation as well as its subsequent defense is a constitutional power of the executive arm of government, but in Kogi State what happened was an abnormal constitutional process where by the budget was presented by the executive and was defended by the legislature.
Yahaya Bello and co presented a budget to the state assembly, while a lawmaker, Ahmed Ahmed representing Ankpa 1 was call upon to do the defense. He gladly did this on behalf of the government house. When did legislative member assume the role of defending executive budget? Where is the constitutional principles of separation of powers, checks and balances? This shows the caliber of legislators that Kogi state has been battling with for the past two years! For such an act to be allowed to take place in the House the deputy majority leader shows that the majority party which happened to be My beloved party has been infiltrated by emergency recruited decampees members of Yahaya Bello in order to sustain his continuous socio-economic exploitation of Kogi state.
The majority party is in great disarray while the minority party is planning strategy of taking over come 2019. The socio-eceonomic underdevelopment of Kogi state in the past two years is a deliberate and calculated ideology of conspiracy against the masses between Yahaya Bello and the kindergarten State House of Assembly.
Before I end this article, It won’t be fair if I fail to apologize to Kogites on behalf of the masses and people of Ankpa state constituency that the member at the center of this unconstitutional and un intellectual acts happens to represent us. We are not denying that, but just that he is a typical example of a judiciary appointed legislator, without the legitimate mandate of the people. In fact, he went without been democratically sent. We, Ankpa 1 people, are intellectually refined and well- behaved people and we promise not to allow them send another liability to the state house of assembly come 2019 via our PVCs.
To the people of the state, just as the state governor has vowed to make majority of the National Assembly members not to go back to Abuja come 2019, we the masses of the state have to make a conscience vow to make sure that all our unproductive liabilities and political hallelujah boys of Yahaya Bello in the state house of assembly don’t come back to Lokoja in 2019 because our primary concern is more of good governance at our grassroots level than those at Abuja.
Democracy is healthy when you have not only a strong opposition but strong vibrant masses orientated Houses of Assembly that operates along the sacred principle of separation of powers for check and balances. When you have a mis-firing executive and a weak state house of assembly, the whole polity is politically, socially, economically and administratively finished.
– Sam Enemama Akubor
