| By Emmanuel Eyitayo
Today, January 27, Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo of Kogi State marks his first anniversary in office. Very few people who experienced a Governor Yahaya Bello, his predecessor and godfather, would ever repose any iota of possibilities in a successor that he had brought into office singlehandedly. Yet, to those who still question if good things can ever come from unbelievable places, Ododo is your answer. Despite the circumstances of his enthronement, Ododo has doused tensions, he has led with grace and honour.
A focused leadership that prioritize repairs of critical social infrastructure. The reason cries of non-payment of salaries are no longer heard is not far-fetched as it is a problem that only regular, proper payments could ever speak to. Ododo’s name is rarely touted in everyday conversations in the state because the governor is not the only thing happening as many businesses all over towns are sprawling and rebuilding with a bursting renewed breath of life. Such is the unexpected treasure that Kogi has found in Ododo.
From total obscurity had Yahaya Bello, the erstwhile governor, blatantly brought a seemingly rustic yet unassuming Usman Ododo to become the flag bearer of the ruling APC in the 2023 Kogi gubernatorial elections against power mongers like Edward Onoja, Asuku and others. An election he would go on to win albeit with a lot of tension and acrimony. Rumors of a divided house resultant upon the outcome of the APC primaries soon fizzled out.
A credit to Bello that a man seen as bad can do real good once his stakes are high. A key weakness of Bello is his ever basking in the euphoria of his fiefdom of political jobbers which he had built around himself. A conspicuous testament to this was his comportments whilst he contested the APC presidential primaries against President Bola Tinubu. His estimate of himself was so bogus he not only refused to step down but also disputed the outcome for which he was prodded on as the White Lion.
No sooner had Bello been sworn into the position that he had won only by sheer luck than he was being eulogized as “White Lion, the Godsent” by his political bootlickers. One would think he would use the power for good to the glory of God. He appointed unrefined, desperate hooligans and made them overnight millionaires with oversized office portfolios. Fear and doom reigned supreme as workers and retirees groaned and died while waiting in lines to get whatever percentage Bello in his imperial majesty would pay as their salaries each months that passed. Suffice to say Bello’s first project, and perhaps the only in all of his first year in 2016, was demolition. He demolished the roundabouts across Lokoja and never was he able to complete their rebuilding till his term would lapse.
This is not to undermine what he would later go on to achieve in the health, education and road infrastructure but a government of decency and lucid principles would have had those flagship projects completed; the roundabouts and the plethora of gatehouses leading to the government house that they themselves had provoked.
Aside the general perception of Bello as highly corrupt, desperate and underperformed, there is now the ensuing epiphany of positive angle of his that Kogi people are becoming more loving of. Unlike what we have seen of the Godfatherism phenomenon across states, he seemed to have hit the choice his successor right out of the pack. He has also by the last election, by hook or by crook, destroyed the detrimental ethic dominance of a single tribe in a heterogenous polity as Kogi’s. There are those who think different because governance as is currently in Kogi is yet jaundiced as comparable to most states. Yet, one must value what one has in the now given what one had had before.
Ododo may not come off as a super smart of the moulds of Nasir El Rufai, Babatunde Raji Fashola, Seyi Makinde, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, or the then governor Bola Tinubu, etc., yet it must not be dispelled with the wave of a hand that these are rare politicians in that they only surrounded themselves with people of ideas, character and pedigree and not political nincompoops and local thugs. This is telling when you look at what became of the careers of the cabinet members of these other governors as compared to Yahaya Bello’s. In fact, had Yahaya Bello been a talents man, he probably would not have messed himself up as he has over graft charges with the EFCC. There can be the arguments of the right people not coming into politics or government, but examples are rife of highly successful and educated Kogians who contributed immensely to Ododo’s elections but are completely sidelined for the Bello’s standards of incompetent and barely educated folks. These thugs shield the governor from meeting greater minds and personalities because Bello had rendered him rather choice-less.
Voices of reason must be concertedly loud against building tomorrow with anything less than the best of today’s people. What makes the difference for Obasanjo, Tinubu, Saraki, Kwakwanso and El Rufai is the quality of those that they surround themselves with, not just the necessary evil of sycophants. The great states worthy of emulation in Nigeria are as great as the quality of those who lead the state. Ododo must refrain from the Bello’s culture of resentment for talents and character if his being governor would be historically indelible. This is the only way this administration and Kogi people can measure up in the comity of states. It is in the interest of all that on the subsequent anniversaries of Ododo’s government, greater positive stories would continue to be told.
Under a year, Governor Ododo has completed the Zone8-Kaduna Road dualization, Zone8-Crusher Road, awarded close to 10billion naira rural roads, awarded the contract for the construction of Lokoja Ultra Modern Market, awarded contract for eight intra-township roads, disbursed bursary grants, personally mediated in highly sensitive inter-tribal tensions amongst his many commendable efforts. Security is no longer stronger in the news than in reality under Ododo. It is the contrast of these myriads of fair achievements against what used to be and the fact that good people or government must be commended genuinely by those affected and not those desperate for government patronage because only then would government have the good motivation to continue to do good.
•Eyitayo writes via <oluabiajanaku@yahoo.com
