Open letter to Governor Yahaya Bello

By Musa Wada

Your Excellency.

I am disturbed because I was one of those who doubted your readiness to lead Kogi state prior to your becoming the state governor by default. I resolved to give you a chance to prove me wrong when it became crystal clear to me that God only gives power to whom he pleases at every point in time.
For close to eight years which you administered Kogi state, I was amazed that your administration was anything but a failure in every sector. Forget about the praise singers hovering around you because they must look for ways to survive in the immediate time, at the expense of the difficulties that would come. Your administration, truth be told, is a monumental failure both at the economic, developmental, social and in the political sphere. I am today convinced that my impression about you as a person prior to your ascending the seat as the governor of our dear state was afterall right and this is because you have shown consistently that you lack the requirement to govern a state like Kogi that is multi-lingual, multi religious and politically diverse but mature.
Prior to the primary election of the All Progressives Congress, APC, I wrote you an open letter warning you of the armmagedon to come for the APC if you, as rumour then had it, went ahead to rig the primaries and enthrone your adopted stooge as the candidate of the party in a state like Kogi state where the Kogi east zone is in the majority.You decided to go ahead to foist your unpopular and politically novice cousin on the party when all calculations points to the fact that it portends the death of the party in the state.
Today, you have succeeded in turning the political zones against themselves because as it stands, all the zones have decided to regroup to support candidates and any political party that has their own as the candidate for the next guber election coming up later this year. Under your watch, our politics is returning to those days of yore when being from a tribe is the yardstick for voting and being voted for. We are now in a tribal political dispensation in Kogi state courtesy of your insatiable quest for enthroning a crony from your polling unit, zone, tribe and political family against the wishes and aspiration of the majority.
As it stands today, no amount of appeal by the leadership of the party would dissuade our citizens to elect a leader they trust to bring about the needed harmony in the state and this is because the party leadership at the national level has shown they are in cahoot with you in foistering your unpopular candidate on the party. Time alone shall tell. I want to assure you that you have destroyed what is left of the chances of the APC in the state to win the next guber election. This time around, without the political elites in the state belonging to the party humiliated and ostracized by you and the discontent in the rank and file of the party, it amazes me how you think you can rig out the majority.The citizens of the state today are just waiting for the election day to show you that you can no longer take them for granted by voting against your annointed candidate and all he stands for.The peace today you see in the state politically is steategic. Our people are ready to speak using their votes.
I am writing this letter to you because I have written to you severally to forewarn you on the dangers of foistering your choice on the people of the state and by going ahead, you have destroyed your legacy, your party and everything it represents in the state and ready for the doomsday. Secondly, I write to remind you that what the state needed from you before the primary was to rise against petty political demands of self and sentiments by doing the right thing in order to carve for yourself a place as a leader to be proudly remembered. You have destroyed that chance.The APC as it stands today will surely lose Kogi state because the overwhelming wish of the people will outdo any personal wish of one person no matter who he is. Your Excellency, what gives you the confidence that you will win for your stooge the Governorship seat if the people are not with you? Remember, it is said that once bitten, twice shy, and one cannot eat his cake and have it, just as there can never be monopoly of ideas in a democracy.
Finally, I am still advising you to retrace your steps if there is still time to do that by reinvigorating the process of allowing the people to chose for themselves the type of leadership they crave for to lead them. Without this, your Excellency, forget Kogi state because the wish of the people will surely prevail this time.
Thank you most sincerely.

Musa Wada, wrote in from Abuja.