Tag: Ex-governors

KOGI State, going by the reaction of ex-governor ibrahim Idris to Governor Yahaya Bello’s 2016 probe of past administrations, has curiously become a state where both cynicism and sarcasm reign. There is no other way to interpret Mr Bello’s impulsive decision, more than one year ago, to probe the administrations of his predecessors, starting from 2003. The youthful and exuberant governor did not explain why his probe did not extend to 1999. Perhaps it was because the governor at the time, Abubakar Audu, is deceased; or perhaps because in one of the crazy quirks of Nigerian politics, his own government is in some way an offshoot of the Prince Audu electoral mandate.

It had to be cynicism for Mr Bello to, in early October 2016, justify the composition of the seven-man panel headed by Justice Wada Abubakar Umar to probe his predecessors when he said: “My administration is ready to put Kogi on the path of development. I urge the people to assist the commission in the discharge of its assignment.” It is curious that a governor who assumed office without any plan whatsoever, and who has so far developed none, could speak of readiness to put the state on the path of development. What development? Is a state developed simply by probes and by asseverations?

In about two unfruitful years in office, Mr Bello has relied almost exclusively on probes and staff screenings to give a semblance of governance. When he embarked on a lengthy and repeated screening of public sector workers, the public thought he truly expected to be able to streamline government workers, eliminate ghost workers, and lay the foundation for an effective and efficient civil service. The workers are today disillusioned. They now see his screening exercises, some of them repeated three times, as a ruse to either delay salary payment or avoid it altogether.

The oppressed and long-suffering public sector workers see his screenings and probes as cynical options to his bureaucratic laziness and lack of foresight. In place of plans, which require enormous amount of cerebral work and economic modelling, Mr Bello gives Kogi the impression of activity and assiduousness. When finally the judicial panel on the probes of ex-governors submitted its report, there was no indication of the gross maladministration and financial shenanigans the Bello government hoped to unearth. But perhaps the panel chairman kept those unseemly details under wraps, leaving the governor to disclose them at his own leisure. Kogites hope he will soon expose and publicise the seedy details and justify the red herrings and tactical delays.

But responding to the probe more than seven months after the panel submitted its report, one of the governors whose administration was also probed, Ibrahim Idris, alias Ibro, sarcastically suggested that the exercise was a futile one. In his words: “What have they been able to see? They are chasing shadows. When the time comes, the people of Kogi State will be able to tell where they belong to…We have learnt from our past mistakes and we now know how to arrange our plates and calabashes together so that they won’t break again. Because we are human beings, we are bound to make mistakes; and as human beings, we must accept that. There is no perfect human being, except God. So we should accept that we have made mistakes. This present administration in Kogi State has failed the people.  When they came on board, the expectations of people were very high. Unfortunately, Yahaya Bello has failed woefully, and the people of Kogi State are ready to vote him out in 2020.”

It is not clear what the Bello government found in the probes, whether he discovered sordid details of sleaze and inane administration, such as are alien to his own peculiarly incompetent government. Kogi voters are themselves not fond of Mr Idris, nor of his successor, the pilot, Idris Wada. Should Mr Bello find them guilty of gross maladministration, Kogites would be pleased to encourage him to bring them to justice. Indeed, the ardent hope of everyone is that past administrations of the state would be brought to condign punishment on account of the depredation they visited on the state. Having suffered so much under a string of incompetent and abusive governors, Kogites would love to see some of their tormentors tormented in return. So, by all means, let Mr Bello indulge his futile lollipops.

Yet, every kogite knows that the problem of the state is much more than the stealing that has blighted it. They know from experience that what ails the state and unnerves its people is more of incompetence than corruption. The corruption visited on the state is not any more pernicious than that visited on most other states. But, unfortunately, in addition to corruption, Kogi is destroyed for lack of competence. As a matter of fact, Mr Bello is the culmination and personification of that destructive disease laying the state waste.

Mr Idris is, however, right about one thing, regardless of the fact that he contributed immensely by his poor judgement and lazy policies to the retardation of the state: Mr Bello will be punished by the electorate in 2020, and he will be lucky not to end in the jail he hopes by his judicial panels to snare his predecessors. Mr Idris helped to foist an incompetent successor on the state, based almost entirely on ethnic sentiment, and can thus not claim to love the state or possess the vision and intellect required to unify and develop that state. Mr Bello will not even get the chance to foist anyone, competent or otherwise, on the state in 2020. He will be preoccupied with protecting his freedom after the next governorship poll.

The former governor also spoke in fatalistic tones of the inescapability of making mistakes. The problem with the Idris and Wada governments is not that they made mistakes, which they made by the bucketful and remorselessly, but that they simply are incapable of determining what is wrong and what is right. Their cracked moral compass led them down the ignoble path of deliberately failing to appreciate what they needed to do to guarantee a glorious and rich future for the state. Given the chance again, none of those who have ruled the state would choose a different path. They are too prejudiced, too self-centred, and too parochial to know better.

Mr Wada has kept discretely silent. He has nothing to say or contribute, not even to demonstrate the penitence that normally follows the adoption of tragic choices. Indeed, it is not clear what angers Mr Idris more: Mr Bello’s disrespectful consideration of the politics and legacy of his predecessors, or the fact that his ethnic stock has been so sidelined by the vengeful, irreverent and vexatious Mr Bello. Both Mr Wada and Mr Idris were provincial and short-sighted in government. It would be tragic if in deciding to free themselves from the oppression and incompetence of Mr Bello, Kogites should once again submit to the poor leadership and tyranny invoked and propagated by Messrs Idris and Wada. They do not deserve any listening ear.

There will be no end to the tomfoolery of Mr Bello. He is not capable of inspiring even himself, not to talk of rousing his state to the “path of development” he so glibly referred to when he defended his atrocious style of indulging in unending screenings and investigative panels. Kogi should get a respite in 2020, but it is not clear whether the voters themselves understand that their crass ethnic politics and prejudices make them the architects of their own misfortune. They are the only ones who can free themselves, assuming they do not continue to regard the shoe that pinches them as the malevolent effort of their enemies’ transferred aggression.