leo sobechi
May 13, 2016
Yahaya Bello: Jejune Politics Of A Head Boy by Leo Sobechi
By June 18, the Kogi State helmsman
would be 41. That does not make him the youngest governor in the present
dispensation. But there is no governor in the country presently that
can boast of Bello’s experience in politics and plodding. Bello has been
in office for a mere three months, yet he has dominated public
discourse as if he had been in office for a long time.
Though Alhaji Bello had an early
life leadership experience of serving as class prefect and school head
boy in his local primary school at Agassa, his campaign to be governor
began and stalled as an aspirant. He lost the All Progressives Congress
(APC’s) governorship primary to former Governor Abubakar Audu.
He was also known to have traded in
stocks, having trained as an accountant and business administrator.
However, if Governor Bello ever trained as a gambler, it is not known.
But his voyage in politics, especially in the politics of Kogi State
reads like the rise and ramble of a gambler.
Less stress had been laid on the
allegation that shortly after losing the APC governorship ticket to the
more popular Audu, Bello experimented with ideas of defecting to the
Social Democratic Party(SDP), and working for the Peoples Democratic
Party(PDP), against the electoral success of Audu.
However, not long after the
unthinkable happened and Audu died midway to breasting tape in the
November 21 governorship race, Bello’s name popped up like the cork of
champagne. And with that sudden re-emergence on the Kogi gubernatorial
contest and political arena, the bubbles of troubles have never ceased.
Even as questions were being asked
as to who or what killed Prince Audu at the threshold of victory, nobody
expected Bello to volunteer an answer. Yet, when the argument came up
as to who should inherit the votes already garnered by Audu before his
decease, Bello pointed in the direction of APC leaders. He argued that
having been warehoused from the governorship primary, the window of
substitution opened by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF),
Abubakar Malami and the Independent National Electoral Commission;
favoured him.
Like mysterious player, Bello
continued to mesmerize the system and Kogi State, such that in the
supplementary election of December 5, 2015; Fair Plus became the APC
flag-bearer, replacing the dead Audu and supplanting Audu’s running
mate.
Not that alone, Bello went into
history as the first ‘governorship’ candidate to contest election in
Nigeria without a running mate. This was partly because by the time
election was announced, those who threw him up as the custodian of a
dead man’s votes failed to provide him with a running mate and the
deceased flag-bearer’s running mate, Hon. James Abiodun Faleke, refused
to play second fiddle to “a stranger” to the governorship ticket.
However, tending to prove that all
is fair in love and war, including electoral battles; Fair Plus went
ahead and ‘won’ the election ‘single-handedly’. From there, he went to
other victories: Alhaji Yahaya Bello was sworn into office without a
deputy on January 27, 2016. And the second phase began.
Having settled down to carryout his
functions, the Kogi governor filled the vacant position of deputy. But
it was in the process of filling that critical constitutional void that
Bello set off billows of fair and foul fire.
In the House of Assembly, the
argument began that it was politically incorrect to have the governor
and Speaker, Hon. Momoh Jimoh Lawal, hail from the same constituency.
Forgetting that no two wrongs can make a right, the Kogi lawmakers that
wanted to humour Bello, never cared to ask themselves whether the
governor and the speaker belonged to the same political platform. Or
even if the two belonged to different political parties, whether Bello’s
emergence followed a happenstance or the dictate of man.
As finger-pointing took over,
Governor Bello denied having a hand in the power play in the House of
Assembly. Then as five out of the 25-member legislature sacked the
speaker, fifteen lawmakers disclosed that the governor was adopting the
Ostrich manifesto, stressing that Fair Plus has given unfair advantage
to the five to foul the legislative order and rules.
It was evident that either Bello was
mistaking the position of governor for that of a school prefect or that
he was equating the functions of a speaker with that of a head boy. And
determined to whip up sentiments, the governor remembered his days in
stock trade and took turns playing the Bull at one time and the Bear at
another.
Having figured out that the game of
number was tilted against him by virtue of the fact that his party
parades 10 as opposed to 15 PDP members of the House of Assembly, he
manipulates the power of incumbency and the use of carrot. If the
situation in Kogi could be likened to a game of chess, Fair Plus is glad
to be the Pope. He is at the centre of the game.
In the attempt by the National
Assembly to instill legislative sanity into the Kogi State House of
Assembly, the Governor remembers that Hon. Faleke, is still interested
in the dead man’s votes he inherited. Prepared to call the bluff of
Faleke’s colleagues, Bello went for the federal might and procured the
AGF, Abubakar Malami SAN; to make another pronouncement, similar to the
former advisory to INEC that provided the testament for inheritance.
Waving the correspondence of the
AGF, Bello succeeded in getting a reprieve to have his budget passed by
nine out of 25 and the Police looked askance.
As a trained accountant, it is
expected of the Kogi State governor to know that statements of account
do not lie unless the accountant decides to fiddle with the figures.
Even as governor Fair Plus should know that five is less than fifteen.
But the simultaneous equation in Kogi State has refused to balance
mainly because the Headboy insists on interfering with the processes.
A fortnight ago, the Kogi State
chapter of APC passed a vote of no confidence on the governor. Part of
the party’s grouse with Bello is his penchant for taking decisions
without the input of the party leaders. They also accuse the Prefect of
robbing APC to pay PDP through his appointments.
The young Alhaji has shot back to
his party men, telling them that as governor, the constitution empowers
him to appoint anybody from any party. What Governor Bello knows that
his APC colleagues do not seem to grasp is that the Fair Plus wishes to
continue his governorship odyssey from where it stalled at the point of
APC primary election.
Despite being subsumed by the
clatter from the House of Assembly, NASS and the APC, the Kogi Sate
Governorship Election Petition Tribunal is still sitting in Abuja. Fair
Plus believes that even if his APC colleagues forsake him, he could find
solace from PDP, especially if the Tribunal revisits the inconclusive
scenario that sparked off the whole scenario.
There is no doubt that from headboy,
Alhaji Yahaya Bello, has grown in stature to a political blacksmith
that has also become adept at releasing fair and foul smokes. If to the
pure all things are pure, to the impure all things would also be impure.
A lot of arbitrarythings have been given effect in Kogi State as such
the current upsurge in arbitrariness could either tame the foul smoke
billowing from the place or further confound it. With FairPlus at the
centre of it all, it would be fair if at the end, democracy is not
fouled.
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