With Bello, Kogi Starts a New Life
Yekini Jimoh takes a look at the new Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello and his promise to change the story of the confluence state
Precisely on January 27, 2016 history was made in Kogi State as Alhaji Yahaya Bello of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was sworn in as the sixth democratically elected governor of the state. Why his coming was historic was because this is the first time a minority will be governing the state since its creation over thirty years ago. It was not surprising, therefore, the sea of heads that trooped out to grace the occasion at the Confluence Stadium, Lokoja, the state capital.
For over three decades, the people of Kogi Central and West had been clamouring for power, following the inability of the two senatorial districts to wrest power from Kogi East Senatorial district that had held the state by the jugular.
Thus, the coming of Bello as governor has been largely seen as God’s intervention, coming in the aftermath of the demise of Alhaji Abubakar Audu, the APC standard bearer during the governorship election. Bello had to replace Audu since he came second during the party’s primary conducted in Lokoja.
Although there were problems facing his choice as Hon. James Faleke, the running mate to Audu kicked against his emergence, saying he was the right person to take over, since they were leading in votes counted before it was declared inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
As a result of these, Faleke refused to be running mate to Bello in the supplementary election. He further registered his anger by dragging INEC and Bello before a Federal High Court, Abuja, in an attempt to stop the supplementary election, asking the court to declare him winner of the governorship election. But he lost the case.
Not satisfied, Faleke took his case before Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Lokoja and asked the Tribunal to declare him winner of the last election. But it was not a surprise, when Bello was sworn in as governor without a deputy.
In his inaugural speech, Bello said “Change has come to Kogi State. I may be the torchbearer, and custodian of it, but you, the great united people of Kogi State, are its owners and proprietors. Let us rise together, take our collective destiny in our hands and go forth excitedly to chart our new direction. Kogi, this change is yours.”
According him, the APC in the state wanted change for their dear state and worked hard to bring it. The APC at the National level, he said, provided the platform for the change, stressing that the entire people of the state irrespective of who they are or where they stood during the election, “Na God Win”.
He told the people of the state that, “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody”, noting that this quote is a complete worldview which defines the purpose and methodology of his administration and sets an agenda of inclusiveness which, he was determined would characterise his tenure.
Speaking further, he said there was no greater evil than corruption and that nothing champions that evil more than impunity. “Corruption and impunity made sure our people repeatedly arrived at a promised future and found it bereft of substance or the promised better life”.
According to him, future generations will not be given reason to count the incoming administration among those that reveled in corruption or impunity. “We will be different by the grace of God. We must and will be that generation of leaders, who made the entirety of Kogi’s resources work for the entirety of Kogi’s people”.
Bello, therefore, declared and affirmed that his administration would have zero tolerance for corruption and impunity, saying he would lead the state by honest and humble example.
Reinforcing his commitment to accountability, he said his administration would employ technology and a multi-layered system of checks and balances to block all leakages in the state’s financial processes and improve their wealth creation and retention capacities.
In the area of judiciary, Bello promised to work hand-in-hand with the judicial arm of government and the legislature to deliver the best governance possible to the state. He said his administration has conceived a socio-economic blueprint that would rapidly develop the state and radically empower the people, stressing that the said blueprint would rank as a sort of Marshall Plan for rebuilding Kogi State on every index of development.
He also disclosed that under this plan for education and health, infrastructure, security, roads, rural water scheme, farm and agricultural communes, heavy investments in solid minerals, artisanal mining collectives and repositioning of the state as a preferred tourist destination are projected to play lead, often overlapping roles.
He also disclosed that his administration would run the blueprint along civil service reforms to change the orientation of the workers and improve their productivity and also to show that his administration is ready to work and not just talking.
In the area of security, Bello said security was a huge concern across the state as his administration was ready to tackle robbery and kidnap cases which are very rampant in the state. He promised to meet the State Commissioner of Police and Heads of every security agency to fashion out modalities to rid the state of insecurity.
Also, in the area of workers welfare, the governor said he was aware that Kogi workers have not been paid for some months, but promised to commence paying as promptly as possible while implementing strategies to gradually defray the arrears.
A leading educationist in the country, Professor Nuhu Yaqub, who is the Vice-Chancellor of Sokoto State University, has advised the governor to constitute a cracking team to help prepare the road map for his administration. He said the governor should go into the Lugard House with the sole purpose of governing the entire state and not a section of it.
The former Vice Chancellor of University of Abuja, stated this while delivering his lecture as a guest speaker during a public presentation of a book titled “The Events of My Time” written by Pastor Joseph Suleiman, a senior lecturer at the Federal College of Education, Okene.
Yaqub, in his lecture titled, “Beyond the Euphoria of Success: Mobilizing Anebira for the Emerging Political Realities in Kogi State”, stressed that the new administration should not go there to settle scores.
Rather, he said the governor should not just accept the report of such a team, but make sure that there is no booby trap contained in it and if he is sure that the report is likely to change the existential conditions of the people, he should pursue the agenda and programme very vigorously.
He urged Bello to battle the cankerworm of corruption adding that all the administrations in the state since inception had been disasters in terms of development and meeting the aspirations of the people.
He implored the governor to go there with a mandate not only of change, but also of fresh ideas to consolidate the change mantra of the party that brought him to power.
“Time is not going to be on his side; it is never so for anybody. This is what poor leadership does not always understand and that is why before long, they hopelessly realize that time is up.”
For over three decades, the people of Kogi Central and West had been clamouring for power, following the inability of the two senatorial districts to wrest power from Kogi East Senatorial district that had held the state by the jugular…Thus, the coming of Bello as governor has been largely seen as God’s intervention, coming in the aftermath of the demise of Alhaji Abubakar Audu