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
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