A so-called special report written by one Sam Diala, which filled with fiction and orchestrated misinformation, with the intent to malign, has come to our attention.
The report exposes the writer as someone who has a preconceived animosity towards the object of his report with no attempt at objectivity and professionalism. It was a unidirectional traffic towards denting the image of a man undeserving of such harsh criticism.
In the first instance, the Channels TV poll referred to in the report is unrepresentative of the general currency of public opinion in the country about Governor Yahaya Bello. You cannot conclude that the segregated opinion of just a little above 6,000 people is determinant of the decision of over 200 million people. Polls are not always reflective of the sociopolitical realities of a given polity.
In 2016, the overwhelming sentiment was that Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump by a wide margin and emerge the first female President of the United States.
Relying largely on opinion polls, election forecasters put Clinton’s chance of winning at anywhere from 70 per cent to as high as 99 per cent and made her victory something like a fait accompli certainty. They were all completely disappointed as Donald Trump eventually won the Presidency and even defeated Hilary where she was pegged as the heavy favourite to win in some states, such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which were taken by Donald Trump in the end.
This is just one example out of many to show that even well-organised opinion polls with wider populations of participants, do not provide a definitive outcome.
Describing Governor Bello as ‘a young man with no legacy behind, no vision ahead’ betrays the author as prejudicially myopic or deliberately mischievous. Bello is a revolutionary visionary with uncommon insight and the capacity for the management of complex matters of state. He inherited a state in rapid socio-economic decline, one with burgeoning insecurity and developmental anarchy. But through managerial ingenuity and creative leadership, he put Kogi State on a regimen of accelerated recovery that activated developmental strides that it is witnessing today. The indigenous rice mill, which the report sought to ridicule, produces rice that is the second highest selling in far away Lagos after imported foreign rice.
Insecurity and crime has waned in Kogi State by 70 or 80 per cent due to the robust support given to security agencies in the state, including the military. The governor is in the driver’s seat of security management in his state. He purchased hundreds of operational vehicles and thousands of communication and monitoring equipment to enhance the operations of the security agencies. The citizens are being encouraged to be active participants in the security of the state by availing security agencies of intelligence reports, which enable them to act proactively to prevent crimes.
Yahaya Bello’s administration has invested heavily on education by making sure that model primary schools are built in all the wards in Kogi State. At least the report acknowledged that the governor started and completed the state’s university and renovated and upgraded the state polytechnic. Beside the aforementioned, the governor has renovated many secondary schools and makes the welfare of teachers its priority.
In the area of education and manpower development, Bello’s performance has outshone that of his predecessors. The writer of the report is encouraged to cross-check the latest facts on ground before writing another piece.
It is an unforgivable falsehood to insinuate that Kogi indigenes are poorer under Governor Bello. It is a figment of the writer’s dark imagination to even attempt such blackmail. He would not have drawn such a ridiculous conclusion, if he had taken the time to visit the state and engage in some investigative journalism to know the facts rather than dwelling on social media speculation and making fallacious claims that have no basis in facts and figures.
The same report that sought to so much to diminish Bello’s achievements announced that the Nigerian Union of Journalists honoured him with an award for outstanding performance in education. That alone rubbishes the false allegations being peddled in that report.
One thing that sponsors of media campaigns of calumny against the governor should understand is that he is a unique personality with God’s grace behind him and the love of his generation. His manner of emergence as governor was divinely masterminded, while his re-election was preordained. The actualisation of his presidential dream is unequivocally ascertained by divine intervention. This was a man who accepted his fate and moved on after he was manipulated out of his Party’s primaries in the state, but was miraculously restored and installed as governor. Nobody can stop the hand of God from lifting a man.
Yahaya Bello is the strongest force of unity in this country. Kogi is the only state in Nigeria that has all Nigerians from all geo-political zones represented in its government. He is a totally detribalised politician with an eye for capacity and talent and cannot care less about ethnicity or religion. If you can deliver along the templates of his developmental vision or you have a special purpose delivery creativity, he will bring you on board to prove your ability, irrespective of your ethnic group, state of origin or religion. A few examples will suffice. The following are few of non-Kogi indigenes in Bello’s government:
Hon. Moses Okezie Okafor, Director-General, Research and Development, is from Anambra State
Hon Femi Adeboyega, State Legal Adviser, is from Lagos State
Amb. Ahmed Bolori, Special Adviser on Public Relations, is from Borno State
Hon. Aminu Mustapha, Senior Special Assistant on Non-indigenes, is from Kano State
Hon. Amande Msughter, Senior Special Assistant on Intergovernmental affairs, is from Benue State.
The highly successful Kogi State Rice Mill is run by a very young man named Segun Olonade from Ogun State. There are other non-indigenes heading various parastatals in the state without being discriminated against. Being a Muslim governor did not stop him from building the first Christian chapel inside Government House. This indicates that Governor Yahaya Bello has what it takes to unify this country and exploit Nigeria’s diversity for its development, as well as to give everyone justice and a sense of belonging. If he can practice that in his own small state, how beautiful would it be to have him as the president of the entire country, who will go to the remotest parts of the country in search of talented people that can be useful in the country’s development.
At a time that the unity of this country is threatened by centrifugal forces and secessionist agitations, Nigeria needs a detribalised leader who can silence separatist agitation by ensuring that justice is done to all Nigerians. That man is Yahaya Bello.
He is a man with the ability and ingenuity run a complex modern state like Nigeria. Today in Kogi, road construction, rehabilitation and repairs have never been as preponderant as they are under Governor Bello’s watch. He is committed to the improvement of the state’s infrastructures, which is why many of the state’s dilapidated roads have been rehabilitated and it is a continuing project.
The state’s IGR has increased exponentially by over 80 per cent under the Yahaya Bello’s administration. The government has been able to save billions of naira by auditing the true strength of the state’s workforce and removing the menace of ghost workers that cost the state over N1 billion monthly in salaries and allowances. That was one of the problems the governor had in the early stages of his administration. The established corrupt forces rose up in arms against him for blocking their means of illicit enrichment. They rolled out propaganda machines to blackmail his government. It is an established fact that whenever and wherever corruption is being fought, corruption will always fight back ferociously.
In Kogi state today, salaries, allowances and pensions are paid as at when due. After the governor was re-elected for a second term convincingly, his critics and opposition went mute. But the latest campaigns of falsehood and sponsored fake news were resuscitated as soon as he began to consider the calls on him to run for the country’s highest office. It is part of the negative orchestra of cacophonous symphony engineered to drown the voices of reason demanding that the country deserves to have someone with a demonstrable capacity to lead Nigeria out of its conundrums.
We aver that in a democracy, opinions can be freely expressed, but written reports of a political nature must endeavour to place primacy on facts and figures derivable from verifiable facts based on painstaking research. This heavily biased report did not meet those established elementary standards. It was, at best, a cut-and-paste report that drew heavily from nebulous social media speculations. The writer should have taken advantage of the open-door policy of the Yahaya Bello administration to visit Kogi State, see things for himself, interact with the citizens and government officials, including the governor, if he so wishes. He would have come up with an objective report that paints a realistic picture of the happenings in Kogi State since Bello’s inception as governor rather than the objectionable conclusions arrived at.
Bello deserves commendation, not condemnation.
Saidu Bobboi, Chairman of the All Nigerians United for Yahaya Bello Organisation, and Mark Adebayo, National Coordinator, sent this piece on behalf of the organisation.
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