Can Yahaya Bello Be The Next Churchill For Kogi?
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IT is fitting to say that the late Abubakar Audu (R.I.P, I still smart from his unexpected death), of the All Progressives Congress defeated the incumbent Governor Idris Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party, in the supplementary gubernatorial elections ordered by INEC on Saturday, December 5, 2015 because of the fiasco in the previous elections of 21 November 2015. And owing to our type of democracy where votes belong to the party and not to contestants of elections and can be transferred. This system staggers the imagination I must confess.
And like President Gerald Ford even though under different circumstances, fate has thrust Yahaya Bello with the mantle of leadership but can he be the new Churchill for Kogi considering the fractious divide in that state? I know so: that is my home state by default.
I am aware of the tough challenges administrators face with little available resources, the difficulty in meeting wages, mindful also of dwindling resources and that Kogi is one of the few states with the least federal allocation accruing to it monthly .
The State of Kogi from the foregoing needs a philosopher and a man of action as governor. Does Yahaya Bello truly fit the bill?
I am referring to the type of philosophers who pause to reflect on the power of interdependence within a state. For no-one truly is independent. He must rely on uncountable numbers of people throughout the day, and encourage others to rely on him. Isn’t that what governance is all about?
In the main, governance in the long run is about people and how these people contribute to the well-being and prosperity of others.
A philosopher governor will work to provide a system of service which becomes the cement that grips us together as Kogites.
A governor with the personality of Winston Churchill will govern well, with or without the Churchillian oration, but not to crush the people but to see them as associates, the same way sportsmen on the field would.
Election winners, they will work with the losing camp to rid Kogi of lawbreakers with their increased gun running, abductions, armed robbery and dangerous clericalisms in religious institutions that are leading to the birth of religious warlords in a state known for high cultural principles that are not negotiated.
Like Churchill, they must lead openly even when their views aren’t popular. After all —what matters is the comprehensive context of the world in which we live.
And the context is one that cannot be denied: there is too much generational lack in Kogi’s world made secure by such reasons as incomplete educational opportunities, broken down values leading to poor health (HIV/AIDS), lack of ability to access finances for medium scale enterprises, and necessary information in the pursuit of a sustainable living.
A Churchill will rise up to be a leading reformist on all of the issues above and others such as disparity in circulation of the common wealth, delivery of satisfactory healthcare with professional supervision (my late soldier-father died in a government hospital in that state because doctors were not available hours after he was brought there), enhancement of civil rights, encouragement for society to support families and pursue scholastic development.
In our day, people from the non-Igala speaking sides are rejoicing over the choice of Yahaya, they complain(ed) of subjugation and marginalization by the Igala. Even though I believe in rotation of power, I do not believe in rotation for its sake to make grandiose statements.
How has the stewardship directed by the Igala governors benefited Igala land?
I am guarded by harsh realities. Since 1999 whenever I travel to Kogi, I see poor road networks. I cannot connect my village of ‘Agaliga-Efabo’ directly from ‘Ankpa’ motor park unless I cashier to ‘Imane’ after which I will be at the mercy of commercial bike riders from Imane henceforth on a terrible unpaved road.
My maternal grandmother now in the twilight of her years has never seen solar panels. She has only seen the light of an oil lamp and moonlight. She may never see a man-powered pump for drinking water.
The only time she and many others have access to water is when they are financially fluid enough to get water trucks to fill cemented man-made aquifers, and the source of water is the open rivers where people wash, bathe, I dare to assume, such that their survival these many years could only have been as a result of mercy from the heavenly beings. Suppose Schistosomiasis (Bilharziasis) strikes, will there be a Jimmy Carter nearby with a praziquantel?
Maybe they need to visit Agaliga-Efabo and, see firsthand if there are graded roads or pipe-borne water, after nearly two decades of governance directed by the Igala.
Maybe they need to also visit any part of Igala land from Ankpa, Dekina to Idah and see if those places are truly developed in the real sense. When you reflect that the pre-colonial Igala kingdom was one of the five prominent kingdoms and empires that existed in Nigeria before colonization (other kingdoms and empires included Sokoto Caliphate, Oyo Empire, Benin Kingdom and Kanem Bornu Empire) you would have thought that like other kingdoms the Igala kingdom would have developed faster and better than its present state.
It remains to be seen if Yahaya Bello can be the next Churchill for Kogi state, to do ‘something’ instead of ‘nothing’ other than to make history.
Simon Abah
Port Harcourt
Rivers State
08023792604
07035017922
The post Can Yahaya Bello Be The Next Churchill For Kogi? appeared first on Nigerian News from Leadership News.
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