Refflections with Olu Obafemi
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AT all the tiers of governance in the state, vide the Executive, the Legislature and Local Government, the crisis of orphanage looms large and un-enviably displeasing. On the level of State structure and governance at the Executive level, there is no gainsaying the fact that the leadership at the Gubernatorial level since inception, the State has been very unlucky in the quality of leadership that has been foist on it (I know that the argument is always that the Governors got their by democratic {election} processes). We can deduce this by the quality of the parties that have contested election in the country and in Kogi State in particular. As I averred in my earlier column (previously cited) on the social history of civil governance in the State, with specific reference to the three individuals that had sought for and got into power in the State since 1999, the state has been particularly dis-favoured with the quality of those who have had cause and opportunity to rule it.
Prince Abubakar Audu, so far the least of all the ‘evils’, was the first. Did he or did he not rule well? He is gone the way of all the world and the culture in Africa debars us from talking ill of the dead. Yet, in popular reckoning, his reign in Kogi state left a mixed feeling. In physical structures (the University, the Confluence hotels, some roads, and so on) he left a mark of performance in the state and they will be interned with his bones and on his grave as well as in the memory of the people. Two Achilles’ left a bad taste on the palate regarding Audu’s governance. One was the character and disposition of the man—neo-feudalist. vain and primordial—the last of these runs through the veins of the other two ‘rulers’ of Kogi State. Prince Audu carried himself like an Emperor, before whom all must bow. Where he sat, only one chair must exist as the lesser mortals, including members of his cabinet, must squat or sit on the ground (mat, if lucky!). For him, his understanding of the state must be from the perspective of his ethnic background. Thus, most of his lofty projects were cited in Kogi East, where he hailed from; some even say from the section of Kogi East of his birth. As I said, this is a weakness that he shared with the other two governors from the state. But, like it or not, within the limits of his ability, and may be understanding, he left indelible marks on many a Kogi-mind, including the alertness of the other two senatorial districts for whom his reign was a reminder that power must go round.
Ibrahim Idris (a.k.a. Ibro), to my mind, was a product of extreme naivety, being also of little educational status. In nature, many believe that he was innocent—leprously so in the end. He probably meant well, but being of little mental endowment, he carried out the dictates of his most recent and last adviser—which happened to either be vacuous in ideas or narrow in perception, or both. In the end, he did not achieve much, except for members of his family—not biological but selfishly political. There are some outside his Kogi East Senatorial District who felt some impact of his reign, those for whom contracts were given and who performed them allegedly unaccountably, shoddily—the Kabba-Olle road is a painful example. He will also be remembered from ensuring that the Kogi State University was accredited, thanks to sound advice and direction by the late Prof. Idachaba, whose advice probably came latest and rememberable.
Idris Wada, Ibro’s in-law, came last and trailed piteously, given his credentials. So much promise was anticipated by his pedigree. A brilliant chap from school (we went to Dekina Secondary School together, with a great tradition of ex-humilibus excelsa—ethical conduct and academic excellence. There was a tradition and culture of detribalization bred into all students of DSS in the sixties. It did not matter where you came from; merit and good behavior was the inviolable yardstick. Additionally, Idris Wada had loads of grey mater, and he carried that on to later life and became a successful pilot. A fine, well-bred, sociable and refined gentleman he was then. You can then imagine the disappointment in governance that he came to be for all of us who grew up with him. Many unkind critical assessors said Audu was at best an account clerk, Ibro, a coffin-making carpenter. But Wada went to school and knew and could name his classmates. This admirable and enviable educational background and cultured upbringing hardly reflected in his governance of the state. You could hardly point at anything of substantial value that he left behind. It was no surprise that in spite of the disillusionment of the state and the anguish of the people for a change in the state and the deflating impact of the candidate the opposition APC in recycling Prince Audu, the disastrous performance of Wada produced the questionable inconclusive election, a la INEC andA PC!
Thus, after 16 years of democratic governance in Kogi State, the citizens remain in pitiably, unmerited and undeserved state of orphanage and unrelieved abjection in the midst of rich endowments.
What is most troubling is the pathetic way in which the ruling party, the APC, set out to further wreck the dreams of turn-around which the outcome of the election could have promised. As I said before, and with due deference to the on-going case in the election tribunals and the Supreme Court, the ease with which the APC succumbed to the declaration of an inconclusive verdict carries a terrible foreboding about the political maturity and sensibility of the ‘change party’. Not stopping there, their decision to pick a new candidate on the mere logic that he came second at the initial primaries, to the utter neglect of the candidate who ran a praise-worthy, joint-ticket, campaign and electioneering on behalf of his party, carries a terrible scare of the ultimate fortunes of the party itself. The later invocation of party supremacy mantra—a frightening echo of the yet to be resolved conflicts arising from the elections to the Legislature—is hardly convincing, even to the neutral publics. The present action of a vote-of-no-confidence in the candidate they preferred and chose as gubernatorial candidate, Yakubu Bello, has come too little and perhaps too late! True, the young man in Lugard House probably means well, wants to run a government by the youth and for the youth, but you can hardly give what you don’t have. He is politically green and inexperienced. And he does not seem to be getting or asking for wise counsel!
The victim, it would seem, is the citizens of Kogi state in the grip of parlous leadership and confused politicians. The state is thrown further out of joint by the new negative firsts that are happening in the State Assembly, the Legislature. The Kogi House of Assembly is arrested in a state of fractious limbo and distempering turmoil. There are at last two factions in the Legislature. The G-15 and the G-5! There are 5 ‘stray’ members of the House (partly due to inconclusive elections) available for ‘wooing.’ The G-5 may have gained some of them, swelling its rank to 9. The G-15 appears intact. Along political divides, PDP has the greatest number (13), with APC trailing her with 10. 2 members will be produced when the inconclusive elections are concluded! The Lower House of the National Assembly says it has come to exercise its constitutional right of taking over the fractious, anomic and anemic House in Lokoja, but the whole thing is in a state of depressing morass! The Senate also vows to take the House of Assembly over. As has become usual of the AGF with regard to the elections in Kogi State, he has asked the Inspector-General of Police to shun the order of the National Assembly to seal off the State House of Assembly in Kogi State, presently under the soporific armpit of the G-5, with an apparent support of the State Executive, who first of all claimed ignorance of the crisis in the Assembly! The AGF has, by his action, lent a witting or unwitting backing to the rule of the minority G-5 and the chaos, or is it conundrum, in Kogi politics runs a-rout!!
President Buhari, who has been so far reluctant to intervene in the political fortunes or misfortunes of the State and its complication by his Party, the APC, may be faced with no other option than to come to the political rescue of this orphan called Kogi State!