Yahaya Bello and benevolent spirits

The one significant thing that Yahaya Bello has done since his controversial victory and subsequent inauguration as governor of Kogi State some three weeks ago, makes me understand why some human beings easily get into trouble with God and man. Surprisingly, such persons often turn around to blame the devil, the eternal scapegoat for errant […]

The one significant thing that Yahaya Bello has done since his controversial victory and subsequent inauguration as governor of Kogi State some three weeks ago, makes me understand why some human beings easily get into trouble with God and man.
Surprisingly, such persons often turn around to blame the devil, the eternal scapegoat for errant man, and or blame their political, ethnic, or business adversaries for their woes.
Barely two weeks into his administration, the first gubernatorial and governmental step that Yahaya Bello has deemed fit and most expedient to take to announce to all and sundry in Kogi that he is now the lord of the realm is to initiate, sponsor and execute a coup against the leadership of the state’s house of assembly by using 5 men to impeach a speaker who is backed by 15 men. The aim, obviously, is for him to gain control of that arm of the government and prevent or neutralize its palpable potential threat to possibly impeach him.
By this singular action, Yahaya Bello is comparable to Okonkwo the lead character in late novelist Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart who was sarcastically described as a successful man who is either too proud or too foolish to realize that his nut was cracked for him by a benevolent spirit.  The implication is that beneficiaries of unmerited divine favour are expected to be more humble and filled with a greater sense of gratitude for having their desires delivered to their laps on a platter of gold.
Everyone in this country is aware of the fact that were Yahaya Bello not a protégé of President Muhammadu Buhari, he will not have been in Lugard House in Lokoja where he is today. Among us Pentecostal Christians, we will say that Buhari is his covenant connector, his destiny helper. Buhari, we will say, was providentially positioned in the right place at the right time to do the ‘right’ thing to make Bello attain his destiny. For a man like this, you will expect that he will always be minded to put his best foot forward so that he will not embarrass his mentor or make him look ridiculous in the eyes of all reasonable men.
Let us move back to the secular now. For a man who got to power in a very controversial manner and whose hold on power appears so tenuous in view of the legal battles ranged all against him, one would expect that he will forever be ready to bend over backwards to assuage bruised egos, frayed nerves and de-contaminate the poisoned, polluted, political environment of Kogi.
Let us move back again to the spiritual. A few weeks back, a notable prophet issued a message to the effect that Bello needs a lot of prayers and that he must seek a lot of reconciliation with the many aggrieved parties who still feel they cannot swallow his so-called victory at the polls. This message was less to me a prophecy than a sagely or sensible advice to Bello and his backers. For it is clear to many fair and just folks that Bello is a beneficiary of an injustice against James Falake and the Abubakar Audu family  that cries to high heavens for redress.
Bello himself behaved horribly. Immediately he was defeated by the late Abubabar Audu in the APC governorship primaries, he is reported to have decamped to the rival PDP. In the governorship election proper in which he was later to inherit the over two hundred and sixty something thousand votes which helped make him governor, he is reported to have worked against the APC’s interest. Since election in his ward was not canceled necessitating a re-run to enable him to vote, it then means that this man became governor without winning a party nomination, without standing for election and without voting for himself in any election. And we say we are running a democracy! The hand of benevolent spirits or divine majesty is on the head of this man. This type of man should be a person whose mantra is not change but peace, peace and reconciliation.
If I were Bello, my first gubernatorial move would have been to head straight for the homes of James Falake and the family of Abubakar Audu to seek for peace and reconciliation, knowing that that may not achieve anything in that desired direction, but the symbolic effect would be a tremendous boost to my image. In fact my first step would have been to leave the inauguration venue, take a broom and a shovel and mobilise willing Kogites to join me in cleaning the dirty streets and drains of Lokoja to send a clear message that my zeal for development will surpass my quest for political survival. Then my third step will be to seek out Peter Obi, former able governor of Anambra State, and find out from him how he successfully managed his relationship with a house of assembly with overwhelming majority opposition party members.
Now, with the house of assembly crisis as his first ‘achievement’, the message the youngest governor in the country has sent to all, is that he is ready for a bloody political war whose casualties may include himself. And now that his hand is firmly on the plough of war, he may not have the time to do anything else worthy of note in Kogi whether his tenure lasts the distance or he is prematurely thrown out of Government House by the courts.
On the day of Bello’s inauguration, I saw on the live telecast one of a few
Nigerians I respect for the way they comport themselves, Dr. Tom Adaba, and other Ebira ethnic men occupying prominent positions on the front row in obvious solidarity with their tribesman, the young Bello. Their jubilation should not end on the note that for a long time, the Ebiras sought to be governor of Kogi and it never happened but that this time around, while the people voted for someone else, their son was ‘divinely elected’ as governor for the first time in the state’s history, as some are mischievously boasting. Dr. Adaba and others should quickly step in and try to steer the young man away from the path of self and group destruction and stop him from again perpetrating one of those things that always give Nigeria a bad name.