In Kogi, a joke taken too far

The build-up to Kogi State’s APC gubernatorial primaries was an interesting one. There were 28 candidates; most of them good men (and a woman) and made in their own right. During the electioneering campaign, ex-governor, Prince Abubakar Audu and now candidate of the party, in his characteristic imperial posture, had described them as non-starters and […]

The build-up to Kogi State’s APC gubernatorial primaries was an interesting one. There were 28 candidates; most of them good men (and a woman) and made in their own right. During the electioneering campaign, ex-governor, Prince Abubakar Audu and now candidate of the party, in his characteristic imperial posture, had described them as non-starters and ‘small boys’ born only yesterday, and that none of them could stand up to him or equal his credentials. That was when a journalist asked his views about other aspirants. It turned out to be true. On Sunday 29 September, 2015, Audu trounced 27 other aspirants to emerge the party’s flagbearer.
Now the party (or should I say the delegates) have chosen Audu. APC is a party after my heart. Although I am not a politician but from the sideline, I had watched the party evolve. Like many other Nigerians, I did not give their merger concept a good chance of success; I thought it was another fluke, in the manner of previous failed alliances among political parties. However the three major parties – CPC, ACN and ANPP pulled it through and soon formed the APC.
Yet, skepticism continued to trail the emergence of the party. A lot of people, and that includes your humble self had thought, their presidential primaries would be their Waterloo. Again that came to pass. This was followed by General Muhammadu Buhari’s emergence as the standard bearer of the party in the 2015 presidential election which excited all and sundry. It was, indeed the game-changer. The rest is now history.
The Buhari Tsunami also manifested in formerly PDP states falling to the APC. Nigerians wanted change, they desired it, they deserved it and they worked to make it happen. But with their conduct since emerging as the ruling party, I’m beginning to have doubts. But it’s too early in the day to judge them.
With Audu’s emergence, is it plausible to say the party is on course in Kogi State? To start with, Audu does not represent change, on which the party’s populism rests. Audu does not believe in democratic ethos, forget his recent recourse to the electoral process to emerge. He was an imperial governor, an autocrat who covets power and does not brook criticisms. It is only those who cow-tow to him, or ‘worship’ him or even treat him like an emperor that gets the best out of him. This was Audu as governor. Has he changed? I’m not too sure.
At this stage in the life of the state when the people are crying for equity, fairness and justice, Audu is the wrong person to emerge because he does not represent any of those qualities. Kogi is a multi-ethnic state. Each group is different as it comes. But to the best of my little knowledge of the state, none of the three major ethnic stocks’ traditional/cultural ethos is hinged on monarchical autocracy. But with Audu who sees himself as the Lord of the Manor and conqueror of Kogi State, the rest of the state are vassals, while the people are his subjects.
In modern day democratic structure, governance is a collective endeavour. How will Audu function in a new dispensation that places premium on discourse and dialogue as against his dictatorial tendencies.
But all these may pale into insignificance, if he has truly changed as his supporters would have us believe, that is if people actually do change. On the other hand, can we really discountenance his past ills as governor? Do we really have short memory as people insinuate? How can APC, the party after our hearts descend so low, to choose a man whose hands are soiled, (as it were) as their candidate.
In all these katakata, President Buhari has remained quite Uhmm. I dare say that this silence could cost the party a lot. The President was silent, when so called party members messed up the National Assembly’s choice of principal officers. The party is still licking its wounds. Now Kogi has happened. Which state is next?     
Audu’s case with the EFCC is ongoing. The amount involved is put at over N10billion said to have been stolen in four years. I won’t dwell much on that because he has not been pronounced guilty by any court of law. But we cannot forget in a hurry how Audu was handcuffed like a common criminal. We cannot forget the memory of the unsuitable environment journalists worked in when Audu was governor, nor can we discountenance the acid attack on one of the promising journalists from the state reporting for The Guardian then. There were allegations of the state’s complicity and the perception of the governor’s involvement. Nothing has been proven against the ex-governor though. We cannot forget in a hurry Audu’s open altercation with leaders of the State, nor can we forget how he and his family washed their dirty linens in the public domain, nor his mistreatment of civil servants and teachers who he infamously described as ‘dead woods’. Come on, Kogi deserves more than this.
After Audu was announced as the APC candidate, a discussion group I belong to went into frenzy. A commenter said: “The whole world is laughing at Kogi if Audu is the best the state/APC can produce in a state composed of talented people”. This is a wrong assumption. The blame for the choice of Prince Abubakar Audu as the governorship candidate of the state should be placed squarely on the APC leadership, which is not circumspect, and unfortunately could not manage the bull in a China shop that Audu is. Come to think of it, has the party just frittered away an imminent victory to a dying PDP?
Kareem writes from Abuja.