The former governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Adoza Bello got the sum of N1.095.76 trillion Federal Allocation Accounts Committee, FAAC from 26th January, 2016 to 26th January, 2024. The humongous amount represented statutory allocation to the State, checks carried out by CAPITAL POST in Lokoja over the weekend, showed.
It was revealed that the sum of N80.2 billion Bello allegedly stolen that he is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC is tar-brush, of statistics of funds accrued into the State throughout his 8-year tenure.
However, funds accrued into the State couldn’t have been looted without his team of Commissioners, particularly as Commissioner for Budget, Planning and Finance, Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Chairman of Local Government Service Commission, Accountant General of Kogi State at the time, Auditor-General for Local Government, Auditor-General of Kogi State, Commissioner for Solid-Minerals, who directly oversee mining activities, Dangote Cement in Obajana and Ceramics factories in Ajaokuta and Coal mining in the Easter Senatorial District. It was gathered that so much funds came into the State without proper records, but were being directed by Bello’s kitchen cabinet headed by his Chief of Staff.
In the template of governance which was used in Bello’s first tenure, his former Chief of Staff and later Deputy Governor, Chief Edward David Onoja was the pipeline that controlled inflow of funds. All the 21 Local Government Chairmen were directly responsible to him and he constituted himself into the ‘Lord of the Manor’ whose instructions are not disobeyed.
Of all those who governed Kogi State since its creation in 1991, guy Bello was the luckiest in terms of fund accruals into the State as he commenced his administration with the former President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration’s ‘bail out’ package for workers which he allegedly siphoned.
Notwithstanding the bailout intervention, Bello ordered workers’ screening that turned out to be one of the most catastrophic exercise in Kogi’s history as workers were arbitrarily sacked, those not sacked have their files missing with their salaries stopped, but not sacked. The exercise transmogrified into ethnic bigotry, where the people of the east were massively removed from office and replaced with his tribesmen from the Central Senatorial District. Corruption and nepotism hit agencies of State government, as heads of agencies demand bribe from the stranded civil servants with a promise to restore their names in the audit report.
Some sacked directors and senior civil servants were at the mercy of the audit committee who were subjected to series of screening and rescreening. Civil servants across cadres travelled from their various Local Government Councils to attend screening that resulted to fatal accidents. Pensioners were not left of the quagmire of screening with some denied their life pension on allegations that some of them did not join the civil service in times past with the requisite qualification.
Regrettably, civil servants who survived the screening were treated with scum and left with stipend of 15% of their salaries with no one to lay complaint. This had been the situation throughout Yahaya Bello’s eight years in office as governor.
It is no wonder that so much money was at his disposal that occasioned reckless spending of which the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was attempting to make him account for the fund.
Foreign and Domestic Loan
Despite the avalanche of funds at Bello’s disposal, he made deft moves to obtain foreign loans. On 12th February, 2021 Yahaya Bello signs $72 million loan agreements with World Bank, and IFAD to construct rural roads and agricultural development.
The condition precedent to obtaining loan from the World Bank and IFAD was “rural roads construction and the rural agricultural development. In 2021, Bello’s presidential ambition has hit high heavens with the much publicity slogan, “From GYB to PYB”, with serious funding of his campaign team, chief among them was the former Speaker of the House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Mathew Kolawole who was moving and mobilising Assembly members from the 36 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory to support Bello’s presidential ambition.
Also, Nollywood actors and actresses, footballers and commercial entertainers were having field days milking Kogi hollow. The media were culpable hemorrhaging the State with needless adverts and editorials, while activities of the Bello were being embellished to justify pay. Where there was no project, the pages of newspapers were being garnished with photoshop prototypes
In 2023, Kogi State signed a $500 million Livestock Loan from the World Bank alongside other 7 States and surprisingly there was nothing close to livestock in the State before Yahaya Bello left governance.
CAPITAL POST recalled that in 2018 in the heat of anti-open grazing debate, Bello invited Fulani herders to Kogi State where he donated over 15,000 acres of land to establish cattle colony. The invitation was amid rejection of proposal for cattle colony by other State governors.
The presence of Fulani herders heightened insecurity of kidnapping and banditry activities across the three Senatorial Districts of the State and unfortunately, too, Bello proposal of establishing milk factory has not seen the light of the day till he left office on January 26, 2024.
From 2018, when he promised to invest resources into livestock farming and 2023 when he secured $500 million Livestock Loan from the World Bank alongside other 7 States, was about 5 years and at present, there was nothing close to livestock farming and rural road development in any of the 3 senatorial districts in the State. This could be the ripeness of time for the loan to be investigated as to how it was utilized.
Internally Generated Revenue
Kogi State internally generated revenue grew from N300 million to over N1.5 billion in a period of 7 years, according to the former governor while fielding questions from journalists in Lokoja at a 2-day training organized for crime and politics reporters in Abuja on 26th September, 2023.
Much as he did well in raising the IGR of the State, the expenditure might not be judicious enough to the advantage of the State, hence, the need to probe the administration wholistically to determine the extent of the revenue generated. In doing so, head of agencies in the State should be made to account for how revenue came in and how it was spent.
The probe would be in the interest of Kogites across the State, even as deeper findings would reveal how the immediate past Commissioners and top aides became stupendously wealthy with choice properties and hotels littering all Abuja and Lokoja within a space of 8 years.
Every public officer holder, including those in Kogi State is under an oath of the Code of Conduct Bureau to declare assets upon entry into the service and out of the service. The compromise and sad story of Nigeria’s Code of Conduct Bureau, CCB in few years back has strengthened the bar of stealing and all forms of corruption in Kogi State.
The demand for probe of the former governor Yahaya Bello’s administration is justiciable and godly.
Atekojo Samson Usman is a journalist and has interest in good governance in Nigeria.
