Less
than two weeks ago, Kogi State bit the wrong bullet when, with the help
of the electoral body and other political titans, they prepared to
inaugurate Yahaya Bello as the governor. Apparently, this was child’s
play. On inauguration day, Kogites exceeded themselves when they
achieved the undistinguished honour of making the wrong history. On
January 27, Alhaji Bello became the first Nigerian and the first
governor to be sworn in without a deputy. It was an inevitable
culmination of serial lawlessness never before seen or experienced in
these parts, a corruption so insidious and far worse than the
embezzlement of a trillion naira, that it beggars belief it can find
accommodation anywhere in government.
In the supplementary election of December 5, 2015, Alhaji Bello also
made history when, with the help of shadowy presidency officials and the
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), he became the first
governorship candidate to run for office without a running mate. The
constitution opposed it, and nothing in the Electoral Act supported that
strange and crazy move, but neither the meddlesome Attorney General of
the Federation, Abubakar Malami, nor the brilliant minds at INEC frowned
at the insurrection against the law. It was an expediency they could
tolerate, nay, even accommodate, and apparently, help to sustain.
But Kogi State was not done making history. To the state, if it would
make history, it had better be one that would not be rivalled for
centuries to come. Alhaji Bello ran for office without a running mate,
won, in the eyes of INEC, without a running mate, and was inaugurated
without a deputy governor. Had the tomfoolery stopped there, perhaps all
would not be lost. Instead, the inauguration itself achieved a series
of firsts. None of the powerful men in the All Progressives Congress
(APC) in Abuja and in government who knew about the constitutional
subversion that took place in the state had the courage to attend the
inauguration. Their consciences suddenly came to life, and they
recognised the danger of being tarred with the disgrace and criminality
of that electoral insurrection. The story of the plotters will be told
one day, for they are not as shadowy as some think.
On Kogi’s governorship inauguration day only two governors attended
and, with as much sombreness as they could manage, gave bland speeches
enjoining Kogites to help Alhaji Bello make a success of his tenure. The
two governors of Benue and Nasarawa attended the inauguration because
they are Kogi’s neighbours. They showed no enthusiasm, and they said
nothing stirring. Who knows what was agitating their minds? The two
governors were as far as Alhaji Bello could go in attracting dignitaries
to his inauguration. President Muhammadu Buhari was not there, however,
and shockingly did not send a representative, though he is party leader
of the APC that won the Kogi poll. He had refused to campaign for his
party when the late Abubakar Audu, a Rabiu Kwankwaso acolyte, was
candidate of the APC. Even after the victory, the president would still
refuse to attend. Why?
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was also absent at the inauguration. He
had campaigned for Prince Audu, but was generally silent in the
dangerous and convoluted aftermath of the death of the APC candidate,
when all hell in plotting was let loose upon the beleaguered and fragile
state. Professor Osinbajo is a lawyer, and he knows what the law and
the constitution say, and he has given indication he has a conscience he
would neither sell nor allow anyone to price. He also did not send a
representative. It is a sad day not only for Kogi, but for Nigeria, when
the number one and number two citizens would boycott such a significant
occasion involving their party’s victory and celebration, and would not
even send representatives.
Alas, Kogi was still not done making history. Both the Senate
President, Bukola Saraki, and the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, who are leading members of the APC, also
avoided the event like a plague. They knew in their hearts that both
the election of Alhaji Bello and his inauguration without a deputy were a
mindless corruption of the laws and the constitution. Irrespective of
where they stood in the fray privately, they knew, as men who lead
others to make laws for the country, that it would be foolish to openly
identify with the perversion that took place on January 27. Indeed the
only notable representation that took place on that day was the
announcement that the wife of the Nasarawa State governor represented
the wife of the president. Mrs Almakura did not make that announcement
herself, and this column could not independently verify the supposed
claim of representation. Other than this unverified representation,
there was nothing of significance worth remembering in terms of
attendance. There was no presidency official, no federal cabinet member,
no top national lawmaker, no charismatic governor anywhere other than
those that duty and geography compelled to attend, and no man of means,
of intellect and of character. Notwithstanding the small noise here and
there in the stadium, the event could pass for a funeral, perhaps a
fairly well-attended funeral.
If all the people who plotted the so-called change in Kogi did not
have the courage to attend, but left the unassertive chairman of the
party, Odigie Oyegun, to carry the can and manage the obsequies, what
other thing of significance took place at the inauguration? Plenty.
Senator Dino Melaye, who virtually took over the master of ceremony job
from the two persons assigned that responsibility, indulged his
customary buffoonery to the hilt again. He is loud, obtruding, voluble
and syncretistic. He did not disappoint in demonstrating his unmitigated
coarseness. It is a mystery how such an offensive man moved in the
circles of APC leadership, not to talk of being elected, or imposed
himself, as senator. For Senator Melaye, everything was reduced to
hilarity, and as far as his infantile mind was concerned, the
constitutional subversion that produced Alhaji Bello and the mockery of
the law that saw him inaugurated as governor without a deputy were the
handiwork of God. While the plotters and other invited dignitaries
discretely stayed away from the inauguration, Senator Melaye saw the
occasion as an opportunity to showcase his eloquence and celebrate his
lack of character.
Then there is of course the 41-year-old governor himself, a man who
prides himself on his youthful age and on the opportunism that gave him
the unmerited office of governor. It was bad enough that his
inauguration address lacked grace, finesse, sense and power; it was
worse that he struggled to read his own speech with any sense of
coherence and modest expertise. He tripped over the words, appeared
frequently disconcerted, and dared not look up from the papers in front
of him. What ailed him? His tormented conscience, knowing he was
occupying a stolen office, or his lack of familiarity with the written
word, even for a graduate of accounting and business administration? The
only thing applauded in the governor’s mediocre speech was when he
quoted President Buhari’s “I belong to everybody, and I belong to
nobody” adaptation of the late politician Sunday Awoniyi’s speech. The
stadium was otherwise generally quiet, at least not inspired into whoops
of joy or ecstasy by either the governor’s sheer presence or his
speech. Everyone, including the governor, knows that the whole
contraption will not last. It is a charade and a corruption of the
electoral process.
It is remarkable that few top Nigerians, distinguished legal minds,
and opinion moulders, have said anything about the terrible
constitutional affront that took place in Kogi in the last two months.
Perhaps they see the crisis as internal to the APC, and one involving a
faction fighting another. They are wrong and short-sighted. What is even
worse is the fact that top APC leaders could lend their weight to the
electoral and constitutional perversion engineered by, and in, their
party. How they do not see that the injustice enacted in their party
would still haunt them in the future, possibly destroy their party, or
even trigger far-reaching implications that could doom democracy, is
hard to understand. APC leaders may not see the dangers ahead, but
without a shred of doubt, the Kogi crisis will not end until justice has
been done. They should pray that the courts, which are being battered
everywhere by the people and the government, should put an end to the
political, ethnic and sectarian rascality going on in Kogi. The
alternative is too grim to contemplate, both for the APC which will
never be the same again because of the demons it has unleashed, and the
country which has lacked the patriots and men of courage and principle
to embrace and nurture what is right and lawful.
NATION
The
Nigerian Association of Christian Journalists has advised President
Muhammadu Buhari against ignoring the opinions of individuals and other
political parties.