Bello and the ramshackle Kogi State

On Saturday 27th January, 2024 Kogi State governor, Yahaya Adoza Bello would have completed a tenure of eight years as Executive Governor of Kogi State. The State which is the 13th largest economy and 20th most populous has been badly managed, ramshackled and left in decrepit.

The once united State was vaguely driven with evil agenda in guise of reforms. The civil service was tampered with malicious screening that saw civil servants satanically retrenched. After screening, he resorted to payment of percentage salaries that never came as at when due. The distraught workers who were still receiving payment would have to be travelling from the Local Government Councils to Lokoja to find out their missing names and in the process met with corrupt officials who told them ‘cock and bull story’ which would later end in partying with brown envelope and ‘palm oil gratification’ for the names to be recaptured.

The process of travelling to Lokoja again and again led to road accidents, while traumatized civil servant died of heart attacks.

Bello’s administration is the most thugs infested in the history of Kogi State. Before he took over on 27th January, 2016, the State had never witnessed thugs in this magnitude. These wild dogs are trained and housed in the Lugard House in guise of political advisers with detention cells. These dangerous humans who are likened to various species of German wild dogs go after their perceived political opponents and retreat to Lugard House for a cover. For this period, their activities are not reported by the local media for fear of their lives. Thugs and thugery became renown such that it was the only way to access political offices. Missing perceived political opponents are not found nor explained till date, while the administration recorded the burning of two mothers alive.

The State has been divided and polarized along ethnic lines. Nepotism was the order of the day. Financial sleaze rocked the State to high heavens with the administration most investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and other anti-graft agencies.

As at the time of leaving office, all his political associates, including his Deputy have deserted him with some virtually on the run for their dear life. These were supporters that made it possible for Bello to misrule the State in such a devastated manner and like the proverbial saying: “Chicken come home to roost”, those who aided evil and approve wickedness are now at the receiving end.

The dethronement of the three highly respected monarchs and suspension of one at the twilight of the administration for political reasons are testament of long hue and cry of bad leadership in Kogi in the last eight years. Bello is leaving a legacy of deceit, maladministration and politics of alienation that will not be forgotten in a hurry

Yet in all these, the Holy Book says: “To everything under the earth, there is time.”