Political Issues
An Onslaught Of Outlaws In Kogi State -By Ike Willie-Nwobu
Nigeria’s part humorous and part tragic circumstances mean that the law is often reduced to a theatre of the absurd, in which the well-heeled and well-armed do not mind an energetic dance of shamelessness.
Following allegations that the current governor of Kogi State Usman Ododo foiled the arrest of his predecessor Yahaya Bello, by the EFCC, the former governor has been declared wanted by the anti-graft
Agency.
It is truly chaos personified, another grand shock to democracy’s dreams of grandeur: a sometimes overzealous government agency (which may just be reaping its just desserts)on the one hand, on another one of its forages, the law as a caricature on the other hand, and a former governor caught in between. Already, as with other high-profile cases in Nigeria, there is a forge of competing narratives so fiercely filled that it is threatening to come apart. It is another instance of the feudal lords of Nigeria’s incarnation of power, flirting with the law and threatening to reduce the law to as much a figure of fun as a jilted lover.
Following several ignored invitations, the EFCC had laid siege to the Abuja home of Yahaya Bello, the immediate past governor of Kogi State and the very face of the monstrous incarnations of impunity that Nigerian Governors have become. While operatives of the EFCC and its hurriedly braided assortment of DSS officials, police officers were at their vexed vigil, Usman Ododo, the current governor of Kogi State, arrived and whisked away his predecessor, benefactor, finger that fed him, God on earth (according to the words of Kingsley Chinda).
While the outfoxed EFCC has declared the former governor wanted, he has argued that there is a court order prohibiting his arrest, with the small matter of the governor accused of over eighty billion of his state’s funds fading into insignificance.
The standoff has broken open a dam of scandal that is sure to flood Nigeria for a while. It is a scandal for a former governor to allow himself to be declared wanted over a neglected invitation by a commission established by law. Invariably, the governor was a lie all along. He lied when he presented himself to be sworn in as governor of Kogi State, pledging fealty to the constitution and constituents of Kogi State. It means he never meant what he professed, and thought very little of the constitutional fiat on which he stood to be governor.
Nigeria’s part humorous and part tragic circumstances mean that the law is often reduced to a theatre of the absurd, in which the well-heeled and well-armed do not mind an energetic dance of shamelessness.
Days after the EFCC obtained the conviction of controversial crossdresser popularly known as Bobrisky in rather soft circumstances for which it was criticized by the inimitable Professor Chidi Odinkalu, the commission is having to quickly reacquaint itself with the seismic storm a big shark can whip up to avoid detention and prosecution in the charged waters of Nigeria’s anti-corruption war.
A certain false memory fastens itself to the façade of public office and power in Nigeria. This false memory which is a product of impunity informs the levity with which people in power or with connections to power treat the law and its instruments. This is certainly behind the elaborate charade Bello is putting up, and it is doubtful he thinks he can get away with it, or how much he thinks he can get away with in the circumstances.
Having reduced a struggling state to a shadow of itself with a combination of ruthlessness and lawlessness for the eight years he was governor, it is no surprise that he is scared shitless of any reckoning.
As for Ododo who was handpicked and imposed on the state by the man he is willing to defend to the death, the early signs are extremely troubling. While the Kogi state government quickly shut down the rumour about the office of former governor, it is clear that the office is real even it if it is absent from the reels of official records. It is also clear that the current government is preoccupied with preserving that ‘office’ even more than fulfilling its mandate to the people of the state. The question Ododo must now answer is this: Does his loyalty lie to his office or to the ‘office’ of the man who plucked him out of obscurity and planted him in the government house? If his answer favours his predecessor, then he has no business occupying his present office.
That a sitting governor would deploy the instruments of his office to shield a former governor from the law for stealing from his state bears tragic scars of a democracy in distress.
In a country where extreme poverty continues to strip families of dignity like vultures picking clean the charred remains of children, there is no one who should be more concerned about the destination of more than eighty billion of unaccountable Kogi state funds than Ododo. But as he is showing, his loyalty lies firstly to a man who turned the state into a war zone just to get him into office. He will do anything for him even if it means turning the Kogi state government house, the symbol of the citizens’ power, to a seamy refuge for a fugitive.
It is shocking the decomposing corpses Ododo is prepared to prod ungloved to show his gratitude for political patronage, and this is from someone who is supposedly drinking from the renewed-hope trough of the Tinubu administration.
Ododo’s betrayal may be localized in Kogi State but its lyre gyrates abominably across the country.
Ike Willie-Nwobu,
