Life after the expiry of gubernatorial immunity in Kogi
This morning, following the hide and seek game between Yahaya Bello and the EFCC that occupied all media platforms yesterday, I read this stanza of a poem titled ‘For It Is A Human Number’ by Jude Herrick. It had popped up when I googled “poems on impunity”:
“Their foundations yet to be crumbling mountains
– to lie like shifting sand.
Liquefaction of delusions wrapped in pretty lies,
made by inhuman hands –
masking truths they can’t forever disguise.”
I read it twice and concluded that Bello, the immediate past governor of Kogi State who is alleged to be on the run from the law, at least as at the time I am penning this, may not have read this. If he did, he may not have understood the import, and if he did, may have been blinded to its usefulness as a guide by the impunity he enjoyed for eight unbroken years. Now, the chickens have come home to roost! Reading a poem at this stage of hide and seek would not be Bello’s immediate concern now. He cannot afford that luxury.
Bello bestrode the Kogi political space like Emperor Caligula of ancient Greece since he ‘won’ gubernatorial election and became governor profiting from the death of a candidate who was likely going to win the election. He had the support of senior APC potentates and it could be said that he his candidacy was railroaded by such forces. It can therefore be argued that Bello was a man who had his palm kernel broken for him by benevolent spirits and should therefore be humble. But it does look like Bello was out of town when the spirit of humility was being shared by providence. His actions as Governor bear this out.
His state’s propinquity to the Federal Capital City provided the plausible excuse for the young handsome governor to virtually make Abuja his abode in his first four years and later on. Did unrefuted rumours not have it that that near permanent resident status had to do with his desire to recruit a Presidential daughter into his harem? Was this meant to improve the economic standing of Kogi State? Could this also explain his chaperon role when a Presidential son had an unfortunate advanced Okada accident? We may never know. But I am sure the former first lady and would-have-been mother-in-law would be relieved that it is not her son-in-law that is being chased up and down by EFCC!
Despite his inability to pay salaries to public and civil servants for a long time, his swag was out of this world. Could the bailout funds provided by the President for some states including his have been influenced by his whining attachment and errand-boy services to Aso Rock? We will never know. But he was seen at every scene at the corridors of power in the last eight years.
Born on 18 June 1975 when I was buying books to start Class One in secondary school, Bello was seen as the poster boy of youth politics and leadership in Nigeria. But his politics and now, financial management, allegedly, leave sour taste in many mouths and put a question mark on the hyped youth efficacy and need to retire the so-called old brigade. This untidy, shameful and timid hiding from EFCC who simply wants him to answer a simple query on how he managed Kogi’s commonwealth does not paint this former governor in glowing colours. It is giving the impression that all that bravado and threats to opponents at election time and for eight years was all ‘wind assisted’, in a manner of speaking.
We saw a former governor who was similarly wanted by the EFCC don a custom T-Shirt and submit himself at EFCC office, offering his hands for the handcuffs. People considered that manoeuvre as courageous and a sign that demonstrates ‘I-have-nothing to-hide’. Is that what he is trying to imitate? This era is different and this government is looking frantically for inflows of funds to finance its performance in the midst of very harsh economic situation and biting inflation on citizens. The humongous funds he is alleged to have corralled could be a bail-out of sorts if the EFCC can help find and repatriate them to CBN coffers. So, EFCC will not let off. That is why Immigration officials are on the lookout and EFCC has declared the runaway former governor wanted. He could be a revenue source. We need those funds please!
A lot of folks are laughing. Not only those TV live show presenters and their humorous guests, but a lot of politicians and citizens who were oppressed and downpressed in the last eight years in Kogi State. After a long lull, Dino Malaye has just released a single on social media. I do not know if the green he wore was to demonstrate patriotism.
Beautiful Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan must be laughing her heart out at the Three Arms Zone where she seats as a Senator who was saved by the judiciary from Bello’s fangs. The trenches dug to prevent INEC officials from reaching her district to conduct elections as well as to prevent any rescue effort by security agencies in case of TATATA suppression have all gone up in smoke! He could be made to refund the money spent digging across those macadamized roads and the cost of repairing them after the elections. If he thought the Jagaban admired those crude tactics, he should now know better considering the unsolicited advice by his spokesman.
Now it looks like EFCC’s guns carry more potent bullets than the TATATA ones used to suppress the people of Kogi during the last elections. Now the immunity is gone, the impunity looks facile and all that bravado was wind-assisted. Liquefaction of delusions wrapped in pretty lies, made by inhuman hands – masking truths they can’t forever disguise.
Isikhuemen can be reached via auxtinisi@yahoo.com
