Much as I am a fervent believer in the principle that which concerns one should come last, certain developments within the last two weeks in my home state of Kogi have made it necessary to as it were – return to base so soon after my piece on the deplorable state of the roads and how it has fostered in the current siege by hoodlums and terrorists.
The first is the reported abduction of a Kogi High Court Judge, Samuel Obayomi by gunmen. The judge, said to be on his way to work was, according to reports, accosted by the gunmen who ordered him, his driver, Ajayi Kolawole and orderly Usman Musa, to lie face-down; they then shot the orderly dead. The incident is said to have taken place in front of the Executive Guest Villa at Okene GRA in the Okene Local Government Area. Although his abductors are said to have demanded N150 million in ransom, the judge’s whereabouts remains unknown.
As if the early morning abduction of a judicial officer is not ominous enough, barely a week after, it would be the turn of a serving commissioner in the Idris Wada administration, Stephen Maiyaki. The commissioner, who holds the Lands and Housing portfolio in the state executive council, was reportedly kidnapped by about six people at about 8.30 a.m. in his farm at Osara in Adavi Local Government Area on Sunday.
Ordinarily, it might seem unsettling that the two events came within days of the setting up of a special anti-kidnapping squad by the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, following the noticeable resurgence of kidnapping in the two neighbouring states of Kogi and Ekiti. The reality however is that this is how things have always been. Not only have hapless citizens learnt to live under the throes of insecurity, theirs is a classic case of double jeopardy in the hand of their absentee government!
Much as I hate to say this, the truth is that if ever there was a state where thinking stopped a long time ago, it must be Kogi. Yes, Kogi – my dear state is in full flight to regression!
Evidences abound. From the state capital looking more like a glorified village – with its sprawling beach-fronts looking like more like a marsh-land that have just suffered massive oil spills – which an acute sense of beauty and planning could have transformed to a world class tourist resort. Do I talk of the vast sleepy country-sides that seems a mere whiff from pre-history? From East to West, the evidence is one of no thinking! It does not matter whether the issue is the state bureaucracy – the inert public service that is at best a haven for indolents; the local government where teachers are treated as orphans and where what is left of school infrastructures have since collapsed; all across the state, you are left to wonder if locusts have taken permanent residence!
I hate to talk about the roads. Last year, I wrote on this page a piece with the title Nigeria’s most dangerous road! In it, I tried to capture the living reality the state of the arterial roads traversing the Western axis of the state – particularly the Ilorin-Kabba-Lokoja, Lokoja- Obajana-Kabba roads. That was when the marauding Bororo Fulani-herdsmen ruled the highways with their deadly order firmly in place; then, armed gangs routinely sacked banks and other artefacts of modern governance with policemen taking to the heels on their approach!
The hapless citizens thought they had seen the worst – then. In February, a new police helmsman Adeyemi Samuel Ogunjemilusi came into town with a bag full of promises. Among others, he promised to tackle the issue kidnapping and the incessant Fulani\farmers clashes. He also spoke of the incessant armed robberies along the Lokoja-Okene-Okpella and other major roads. Four months after, the kidnappers have not only relocated their capital to the state, their armed kiths – herdsmen and robbers – are having a field day unleashing their reign of terror unchallenged! To imagine that this is happening in a state where the capital plays host to a military garrison!
Why is the state so unblest?
Once upon a time, we had a Prince Abubakar Audu as governor. A charming prince with sartorial sense and extremely good taste, his problem was attempting to play the monarch in a democratic setting. Yes, Audu loved to play god – enjoyed the fawning adulation of his horde of courtiers – but then, he also built roads, refurbished schools and medical facilities; recall that he even gave the state a university which he named after himself! With the benefit of hindsight, I would wager that the man gave meaning to governance – far more than any of the wayfarers that have mounted the saddle in the state! I have heard that his undoing was his attempt to treat citizens as subjects!
Ibrahim Idris – Ibro was however of a different class. Of modest intellect by any standards, he was clearly a disaster as far as governance is concerned. He had neither a sense of justice nor an understanding of what it meant to government a complex, heterogeneous state like Kogi. A carpenter by profession, he apparently saw everything about governance within the prism of wood and nails – the result of which is the unprecedented experience of regression despite massive inflow of funds.
Whither Idris Wada? For an individual known to be permanently on the move, shuttling between Abuja and Lokoja, it does seem to me that not much is known about the Pilot-Governor by residents of the state capital let alone the citizens over whom he governs! Those who should know have whispered their fears about a governor, who has neither the stomach for the humdrum of governance, nor capacity for the office and yet insists on carrying on all the same. Does anyone still wonder why the state is in such a sorry state that it has found itself? It’s hard to find kind words for a leader under whom the state has since regressed to a Hobbesian State of Nature!
The man Wada, like the state over which he pretends to preside, needs help. While the state needs rescuing from the siege of the terrorists; the governor needs to be relieved of the unwanted burden of office. Seriously, the people need to be delivered from the clueless, indifferent administration holding them hostage.
Can anyone imagine the state under the current leadership for another four years? That would be worse than disaster!
‘The man Wada, like the state over which he pretends to preside, needs help. While the state needs rescuing from the siege of the terrorists; the governor needs to be relieved of the unwanted burden of office. Seriously, the people need to be delivered from the clueless, indifferent administration holding them hostage’
