Today, for the second time in about nine years, Palladium is donating his column to an ardent reader who feels distraught about the desecration of the fine arts of politics in Kogi State. The youthful Governor Yahaya Bello is busy upending common sense in the state, lawmakers are divided in two, with one part, the majority, fleeing to Abuja with the mace, and another, just five of them, turning arithmetic on its head. The ordinary Kogite watches in great perplexity, unable to comprehend how the simple act of voting peacefully for the late Abubakar Audu/Abiodun ticket has turned into a farce orchestrated by both the ruling APC and INEC
Kogi State has been in the news for the wrong reasons of late. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) dealt a devastating blow to the state when on 22nd November 2015, it announced the result of the governorship election held on 21st November 2015 as inconclusive. On Sunday, 22nd November 2015, Kogites had stayed glued to their televisions to watch how the elections results from the local government areas were trickling in one after the other. Many Christians amongst them missed Sunday church services as they stayed back home to monitor the results of the election. The Returning Officer of the election, Professor Emmanuel Kucha, Vice Chancellor, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, finally announced the scores of the candidates in all the 21 local government areas of the state after the collation of the figures. Kogites became agitated when Professor Kucha announced that the collation officers were proceeding on a short break. Little did anyone know then that something miserable was afoot.
On his return from break, the professor announced that Prince Abubakar Audu (now deceased) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) scored 240,514 votes, while Capt. Idris Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) garnered 199,514 votes. He said that the margin of votes between Messrs Audu and Wada was 41,353. He, therefore, further announced that the election was inconclusive because the total number of registered voters in 91 polling units in 19 local government areas where election was cancelled was 49,953, which according to him was higher than 41,353 votes with which Audu led Wada. The returning officer added that, by INEC guidelines, no return could be made for the election until a supplementary election was held. The supplementary election held on 5th December 2015 at the end of which Alhaji Yahaya Bello, who never participated in the main election, was declared the winner by “supplementary votes” of 6,000. It was not until 24th November 2015 that INEC owned up to the demise of Prince Audu.
The conduct and announcements of INEC on Kogi polls have since set Kogi State on the path of absurdities, legal and political. The Kogi state Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, now sitting in Abuja, is being called upon to resolve the legal absurdities. These include: (a) The declaration by INEC that the election of 21st November 2015 was inconclusive after it had announced the results of all the local government areas; (b) The choice of INEC to use its guidelines as against applying the provisions of the Electoral Act and the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to declare the election inconclusive; (c) The propriety or otherwise of INEC conducting a supplementary election on an election that had been won and lost going by the figures INEC itself announced; (d) The constitutional basis or otherwise of INEC allowing Alhaji Yahaya Bello to contest an election without a running mate; (e) The propriety or otherwise of INEC merging the votes scored by the late Abubakar Audu/Hon. James Abiodun Faleke with the supplementary votes of Alhaji Yahaya Bello and the law that permits such a merger.
There are many other issues that the Tribunal will be called upon to determine. All Kogites and the whole world are anxiously waiting for the decision of the learned Tribunal.
Alhaji Bello was inaugurated as the fourth civilian governor of Kogi State on 27th January 2016. He was sworn in without a deputy. This act is unprecedented in Nigeria. Kogi State is fast becoming notorious for earning the first position in every bad political occurrence in Nigeria. In 2007, it became the first state to have the election of its governor upturned by an election tribunal. In 2011, it became the first state to have three governors in one day: the then outgoing governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris; Capt. Idris Wada sworn-in by the President of the State Customary Court of Appeal; and the Speaker of the then State House of Assembly, sworn in by the Chief Judge of the State. The state is also now on record as the first state in which the candidate who won an election died before being sworn in, calling for the application of section 181 of the Constitution.
Alhaji Bello has spent three weeks as the governor of Kogi State. A period of three weeks may be considered too short to assess the performance of a governor. It is, however, sufficient to come to a decision on what type of governor he would make. A careful study of the actions and utterances of Alhaji Bello, as governor of Kogi State, clearly shows that he is an intemperate and sometimes unpredictable person, imbued with extraordinary energy and youthful exuberance, almost bordering on the bizarre. He has sufficiently demonstrated that he is someone who would take an action first before thinking over it. The consequence of this is that he has had to reverse himself on several issues relating to the policies he announced within the first few days of his tenure. He lacks the experience, maturity, insight, shrewdness and astuteness required to govern a state like Kogi or any state for that matter. He is naturally self-conceited and not reflective.
Upon his inauguration, the first thing he did was to abandon Kogites and proceed to attend the meeting of the Northern Governor’s Forum. The meeting was more important to him than the plight of his people, particularly the workers of the state civil service who had been on strike for non-payment of salaries that had accumulated for four months. Alhaji Yahaya Bello returned from the meeting and announced that the hungry workers would have to undertake an elaborate screening exercise before they were paid October 2015 salaries. The exercise would have taken another one month or more to conclude. Kogi State chapter of the Nigerian Labour Congress rose up to the occasion and alleged that he acted mala fide and betrayed the trust reposed in him. The Congress reminded him that it was to honour him that they agreed to call off the strike. It threatened to resume the strike within seven days if the governor failed to reverse his decision on the screening exercise. The Congress had wondered how the workers would cope with hunger for another one month. The governor immediately reversed his decision.
Alhaji Bello promised to pay one month salary arrears to the workers. As at the time he announced this decision, he did not know the amount of money in the coffers of the government to determine whether or not the money would be sufficient to cover the wage bill. He was not even sure what the wage bill was when he made the announcement. It was a whimsical decision to score political points. He was later faced with the stark reality as he met only N2.5 billion in the government’s account, whereas the wage bill was N3.5 billion. But he went ahead to deplete the N2.5 billion he met by first taking care of his security vote and awarding a contract of N100million for the renovation of his office, amongst other huge sums of money he had withdrawn for some other so-called state reasons. The resultant effect of all this was that almost half of the number of the workers have yet to receive their October 2015 salaries as at the time of writing this piece. And, there is no hope of them receiving their pay as no arrangements are being made in that regard. Meanwhile, he is said to have incurred some huge hotel bills at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, and another whopping sum at Reverton Hotel, Lokoja.
Alhaji Bello knew that he needed the cooperation of the members of the State House of Assembly. He, however, approached the matter in an arrogant manner. He demonstrated his lack of skill, finesse and diplomacy on the issue. After securing the approval of the lawmakers for his nominee for the office of the Deputy Governor, Hon. Simon Achuba, in a subterranean manner, he invited them into his private residence and addressed them roughly. He did not leave any of them in doubt that he had become the Governor of Kogi State and would remain so for the next eight years. His coarse language angered the members, majority of whom are of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). His immodesty made him lose control over the Kogi State House of Assembly, notwithstanding the unlawful manner he wooed them. By the time he attempted to impose his stooge as the Speaker, the exercise ended in fiasco as only five of the twenty members were available to do his bidding. They, nevertheless, went ahead with their unconstitutional acts with the strong backing of the military and police who were deployed that day to give the five members protection. One really wonders the business of soldiers from the Army Records in Lokoja over a legislative matter that is purely civil. Perhaps the commander of the unit or the Chief of Army Staff would be in a better position to explain this. Meanwhile the governor is yet to explain to Kogites why he had to conduct the swearing-in ceremony of the Deputy Governor under a secret cover in his sitting room rather than the Confluence Stadium or any other open place. The arrogance of Alhaji Bello has also been visibly demonstrated by his decision to block the road that passes by his personal residence beside the Government House, Lokoja, thereby causing pains and inconveniences and logjam for road users.
The governor has exhibited ignorance of the clear provisions of the constitution. This has led him to commit unconstitutional acts and impeachable offences. He does not appear to have knowledge of the limits of his powers as a governor. He imagines that he has absolute and unfettered powers to do anything he wants. He has dissolved the Local Government commission without regard to the fact that it is unconstitutional to do so except at the expiration of its stated term. He abrogated the joint account of Local Government Councils and the State without repealing the law establishing it. He has issued directives to Universal Basic Education and Pension Bureau contrary to the extant laws and rules guiding them.
Alhaji Bello also announced that he had granted autonomy to the local government councils, apparently, without any understanding of the implications of such a fundamental policy decision. He places no structure on the ground either by legislation or guidelines upon which such autonomy can operate. It is a blanket power conferred on the local government council chairmen to conduct the affairs of their councils as they desire. Finances and the staff salaries and welfare of the local government councils are now at the whims of the council chairmen. Indeed, the crucial question agitating the minds of right-thinking Kogites is whether or not local government autonomy can be granted by mere irrational verbal pronouncement of a governor without any legislative or constitutional backing. Given the penchant of the governor at reversing himself, it will not be surprising to hear, in the next few days, that he has reversed the decision again. One interesting aspect of the autonomy granted the council chairman is the fact that few days after the announcement of the granting of the so-called autonomy, the Governor himself proceeded to suspend all the Directors of Local Governments (DLGS) and cashiers for one month without consulting the chairmen. Right now, all permanent secretaries in the state civil service, directors of finance, deputy accountant-general and staff of accounts sections of all ministries and parastatals are being placed on one-month compulsory leave.
His hatred for the Okuns is brewing and manifesting. He ensured that his cronies who impeached the Speaker did not give the slot to an Okun man even when it was zoned to the western Senatorial District. He also ensured that a Lokoja man got it. Furthermore, he ensured that an Okun man who was the deputy accountant general did not act for the accountant-general when the latter was sacked. He is said to be planning to bring an Ebira from Lagos to be the accountant-general of the state, a civil service position.
Right now, Kogi State is in the hands of two amateurs and inexperienced administrators. Yahaya Bello, the Governor, and Edward Onoja, the Chief of Staff, who have demonstrated lack of capacity in governance and administration. Both of them have no political or administrative pedigree and acumen. Alhaji Bello served as civil servant at the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission for only twelve years. He never became a director to direct any affair. He is today a multi-billionaire. Edward Onoja worked in the banking system for few years before he was eased out. Both of them, regrettably, are calling the shots in Kogi courtesy of INEC’s manipulations against the will of the people of Kogi State, freely expressed at a peacefully conducted election of 21st November 2015 where nobody complained of any malpractice. Until the Tribunal rules, the absurdities in Kogi are bound to continue. Hopefully, this won’t be long.
- Adeola writes from Lokoja
