I think the Governor of Kogi State Yahaya Bello also known as “White Lion” within political cycle is a true politician who thinks that the rest of us Nigerians are either stupid or we suffer from memory loss all the time.
Today I read in the Punch Newspaper the interview Governor Yahaya Bello was said to have granted to Channels TV Sunrise programme.
In the said interview Governor Yahaya Bello was quoted to have said: “Nigeria’ll be safe when politicians stop using thugs” According to the paper Yahaya Bello, said “Nigeria will be a safe place to live in when politicians stop the use of thugs and criminals during elections”.
“When politicians begin to stop the use of thugs, touts or some group of criminals, that is when we will begin to have safety and security in our land,” Governor Yahaya Bello was quoted to have said “that thugs, who were used and dumped by politicians during elections metamorphosed into “hydra-headed monster” and criminal elements who now terrrorise Nigerians”.
Facts.
I thank Governor Yahaya Bello for being truthful and blunt as quoted above. That is how it should be
This is coming direct from the horses mouth.I think Governor Yahaya Bello must be commended by this truth and the revelations which speaks volumes and direct at the heart of the insecurity in Nigerian.
If the Governor had stopped at this revelation and as a patriotic and repentant soul owned up as one of the politicians that used or who aided and abetted the use of thugs or who stood by and benefitted from thuggery and thuggish democracy that characterised the November 16th 2019 elections in Kogi State, I would have doff my hart for him and then appeal to all who suffered one form of violence or the other in the 2019 violence proned elections in Kogi State to forgive and forget. But Yahaya Bello did not stop there.
He added peper to injuries and gave himself pass marks as Saint Or Ustaz Yahaya Bello who abhores thugs and thuggery as a means of winning election.
With such audacity of purity of his Sainthood/Ustazism his Excellency said that contrary to what is in the public space, he won the November 16, 2019 Governorship Poll without the use of ‘boys’ or thugs.
The governor said political thuggery was the norm in Kogi before he came into power but he “refused to play that kind of dangerous or unnecessary politics” when he came on board as governor of the North Central state.
He said, “When I came on board, I inherited a state that was largely divided along several lines.
For you to aspire to be anything politically in Kogi State then, you must have what we call ‘boys’ or thugs or touts and then use it to intimidate people during political dispensations.
“Once the political exercise is over, the so-called boys or thugs or foot soldiers would be abandoned and then left to themselves and by that, they breed into something else or a hydra-headed monster that you will not be able to curb at the end of the day.
There are several history and intelligence to that across the country.
“But I refused to play that kind of dangerous or unnecessary politics when I came on board. My ascension to office is known to everybody in the world.
I chose my path immediately and decided to deal with criminals irrespective of political affiliations by using the laws passed by the Kogi State House of Assembly and the existing security architecture.”
There is no doubt that Governor Yahaya Bello is either being politically economical with the truth or he is out to outrightly engage in political hypocrisy to score debating points or he thinks that Nigerians are down right stupid and needed to be fed with this kind of summons during this Covid-19 pandemic to be amused.
It is on record that even the blind and the deaf knew that what happened on the 16th November 2019 was not the product of the will of the people. It was not democracy.
It was government that used the thugs by the thugs for the thugs that did the selection in the name of election.
Democracy was subverted and sovereignty was not by the people.
Electoral observers both local and International who observed the processes said the November 16, 2019 Kogi State Governorship Election was marred with violence and bloodshed.
As PUNCH reported Acheju Salome Abuh, who was the Women Leader for the campaign organisation of the Peoples Democratic Party governorship candidate, Musa Wada, was burnt alive in her home by suspected thugs after the election.
The United States Government subsequently imposed a visa restriction on some individuals for their actions during the November 2019 Kogi State elections.
Fake police were freely used to undermine the will of the people.
Helicopters with teargas were deployed to ruins the choice of the people.
Many people lost their lives and results of the election were never free choice of Kogi people.
Tatatacracy which is government of the guns by the use of the guns was born during and after the election.
The Governor himself repeated this “them go the hear am tatatata” during his speech when he went to campaign for re-election of Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu SAN.
I think Yayaha Bello knows that thugs were used for the 16th November 2019 selection in Kogi State.
Conscience as Othman Danfodio put it is an open wound and only truth can heal it.
Let Governor Yahaya Bello be truthful and admit that he was declared winner based on a pre-determined outcome which was not based on the will and sovereignty of the vast majority of Kogi people.
That is the truth and nobody should pontificate about it.
