Recently a faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kogi state instituted a panel to investigate Governor Yahaya Bello over alleged anti-party activities. OYIBO SALIHU looks at the issues and concludes that a new wave of crisis is a disservice to the electorate.
Bello’s divine emergence
News of his ‘divine’ emergence as governor of Kogi state went viral and it became possibly, a prayer source for most individuals who would always wish to have God’s favour thrust on them like He did to Yahya Bello. Of course, it will not be out of place to say the governor who recently turned 41, effortlessly rode into the Lord Lugard House. This followed the unfortunate demise of Audu Abubakar, the original standard bearer of the All Progressives Congress in the governorship election. Constitutionally, the lot became that of Bello to carry on from there.
Dispensing ‘favour’
However, there is a price attached to it-‘favour’ to be dispensed to major stakeholders or players. This appears to be at the centre of the squabble within the APC-led government in the state and some party top shots. The manner of appointments by the governor, has generated bad blood among some party top shots, most of whom are accusing him of anti-party activities.
Bello’s promised change
Notwithstanding his manner of emergence, Bello pronounced on his inauguration that the APC change mantra, will show itself in the governance of the state by putting to rest the alleged misrule, sectionalism, nepotism and high-level injustice, believed to be common features since its creation over twenty five years ago.
Again, for a youthful governor in his very early 40’s, a generational shift in leadership positions in the state is not unexpected. To do otherwise, Bello will be reneging on campaign promise during the primaries, when he declared his readiness to hand over the driver’s seat to the youth, to effect necessary change in the development of the state.
The governor who prides himself as a believer in equity and fairness, however says merit should not be compromised. Today, young indigenes of the state are being saddled with leadership responsibility to show their worth, thus putting a stop to the recycling of old and same set of politicians.
Vote of no confidence
And this latest style has put him against some notables within the party. Just before the state’s election petition tribunal could pronounce him duly elected, some APC chieftains, led by the state chairman of the party, Alhaji Haddi Ametuo, passed a vote of no confidence on the governor, alleging that he never “consulted” or “carried” them along in the appointments made by him. .
According to our correspondent’s findings, “the governor is not averse to consultation, but what he often declines is party leaders coming up with either their relations or some spent force who can’t come up with deliverables in governance,” a development Abdulkarim Tijani Oguna, a youth leader, describes as the bane of the state’s backwardness.
Also, Ametuo is alleged to have picked a grouse with the governor over the latter’s decision to turn down the former’s offer of appointment as chairman of the state’s Board of Internal Revenue. In fact, Bello was said to have told him he lacks necessary qualifications to head such a financial nucleus of the state .
Follow-up panel
But while the no confidence vote seems to have failed, a group, “Kogi APC leaders” based in Abuja, set up an 11-man panel to investigate the governor over alleged anti-party activities.
They alleged: “Out of the 15 commissioners the governor appointed, PDP has 13 card-carrying members while APC has two. Out of the 105 members of the caretaker committee members for the 21 local government councils, PDP has 72 while APC has 33.
“Out of the 28 people he appointed as Special Advisers and Senior Special Assistants, PDP has 24, APC has one, APGA has one, Labour Party has one, Accord has one.”
The panel was headed by Senator Dino Melaye a serving lawmaker representing Kogi West Senatorial District, who is believed to have benefited immensely from the new administration. Its major term of reference was to review the allegations against the governor and report back within seven days.
This was after a crucial meeting held on Wednesday , April 20, 2016, at Amso International Hotel in Abuja, owned by Senator Mohammed Ohiare, an Ebira man battling in court to return to the Senate. The parley, according to the resolution, had in attendance 92 party leaders, including Ametuo, Ohiare and Saliu Ohize among others.
Its basis
The party said it acted based on Article 12 (8) of the APC constitution, to convey the meeting, where it agreed to set up the committee made up of members from the three senatorial districts of the state, to invite the governor for necessary questioning.
Women counter
Countering the position, the state’s deputy women leader of the party, Mrs Deborah Oyiza Isiguzo, said the section of the party’s constitution which the group quoted to back their action, does not tally with the provision of Article 21 on how to deal with erring party members.
Arising from the APC Executive meeting with its women wing at the party’s secretariat in Lokoja , the group warned Senator Melaye and his cohorts to desist from creating further crisis in the state.
Isiguzo said the people are only out to distract the governor from pursuing the vigorous agenda of developing the state, adding that the women from the three senatorial districts of the state are solidly behind the governor.
She said: “We are not unaware of their antics, many of them are anarchists who don’t see anything good in the new innovation the governor has brought into the governance of the state . I am not surprised by the ranting and rumbling of these self-acclaimed Kogi APC leaders who wanted Governor Bello to be subservient to them in handling the affairs of the state”
According to her, “Kogi state had suffered enough in the hands of people whose interest is nothing but their pockets and their families. God almighty brought Yahaya Bello to effect positive change in the state. We the women who are always at the receiving end in the past, would never support any move, any manipulation to disrupt the governor from achieving his laudable programme for the people of Kogi state
“Whoever claimed that those appointed into positions of authority in the state are members of the PDP should come out with proves to substantiate their claim. As far as we are concerned, the newly appointed commissioners are not only members of the APC, they are card-carrying members.”
On Melaye, the women said, he “should bear in mind that when he nominated the SSG of the state, she was never a politician let alone being a member of APC. I think it is better for Dino and his cohorts to look into their affairs first before criticising the governor.”
Melaye guilty of same?
Recalling the lawmaker’s role in the choice of Senator Bukola Saraki as Senate President, she took Melaye to the cleaner, saying he should even be the one to be accused of anti-party for being the first person to nominate Saraki against the party’s wish.
LG administrators also kick
Sounding a similar tune, the 21 local government administrators in the state appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari and the national leadership of the party, to hold both Melaye and Hon. Abiodun Faleke responsible for the political crisis rocking the state.
They made their positions known at a press conference in Lokoja via the group’s spokesman/ administrator of Ijumu local government area where Melaye hails from.
“We have at our disposal, credible intelligence linking the two lawmakers to the plot to incite the youths of the state against the governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello. It is also on record that Senator Melaye and Hon. Faleke recently held a meeting with members of the opposition, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the state assembly with a view to making the state ungovernable for the governor,” they alleged.
Describing the allegation against the governor as a gang up, Isah lamented that rather than approaching the Court of Appeal to seek redress after the pronouncement on the governorship election, “some selfish and self-centred politicians in the state are bent on causing crisis,” stressing that the people of the state should not be taken for granted.
Expressing shock over the sudden change of position by Melaye, who earlier described Bello’s coming as divine, the administrators declared that “no amount of threats and blackmail would distract the present administration from moving the state forward.
“That kangaroo panel put in place to probe the governor is an exercise in futility, as nothing would come out of it, what is unfolding in the state is a calculated attempts to create fear in the minds of the youths or instigate violence so as to destabilize the state.”
“Dino expected the governor to favour him in all appointments, but he brought the Secretary to the State Government(SSG), is that not fair enough? Dino should accept Bello as divine and desist from heating up the polity.
“The governor has been so transparent in all his appointments. He gave each local government one special adviser, and shared others equitably in the spirit of fairness and justice which had eluded the state since it creation.”
‘Melaye not wrong’
But speaking in defence of Melaye, his media aide, Mr. Gideon Ayodele, said there is nothing wrong in his boss asking to have input into the choice of local government administrators, adding that the senator, expectedly presented his interest which was turned down by the governor.
And in appointing the commissioners, the governor also left out his boss, a development Ayodele described a misnomer, noting that “this victory for APC in this Kogi state is a hard-gotten one. We fought and struggled for it.”
The PDP angle
Amidst the dramatic melee, while a faction of the state APC is busy going for the governor’s jugular, the People Democratic Party(PDP) in the central senatorial district is losing the grip through the thrusting of PDP leadership of the district on the shoulder of Senator Ahmed Salau Ogembe, a situation some political watchers described as a good omen for Governor Bello’s administration.
Kogi needs rethink
Irrespective of the legality or otherwise of the Melaye-led panel, political observers are of the view that both the governor and the APC leadership need ruminate over how they got the mandate, and can’t therefore afford to waste the opportunity. They contend that if the PDP is being accused of failing the state, it is just proper that things should be done differently to achieve a different and better result.
And in doing this, analysts are of the view that all the actors, the governor inclusive, should toe a middle course and embrace diplomacy in sorting out the issues, because “Kogi can’t afford another crisis, especially within the governing APC in the state.” Obviously , a new wave of crisis, in whatever form, is certainly a disservice to the state.
