Yahaya Bello and the desecration of Ebira culture

BY USMAN OZOVEHE

Sometime in 2023, in the twilight of the administration of Yahaya Bello as Kogi state governor, a notable cultural and traditional revulsion that shook the cultural fabric of the Ebira nation took place. Then Governor Bello caused his commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs, MLGCA, a fellow Ebira man, to issue a query to the then Ohinoyi of Ebiraland, the late Ado Ibrahim, a nonagenarian, for alleged failure to receive then President Muhammadu Buhari within his domain. Dated January 5, the query was signed by Enimola Eniola, director of chieftaincy affairs in the ministry. It was a bad way to start the year for the royal family.

Considering the frail and fragile health of the 91-year-old monarch, not a few were taken aback by the erosion of age-long respect for the traditional authority and age in view of the fact that the Ohinoyi was old enough to be Bello’s grandfather. Not that he could not be queried for criminal malfeasance or for actions undermining peace and security. The old man said he was not informed about the president’s itinerary. But the delusions of grandeur had set in as the governor saw himself as all-powerful and capable of doing anything that caught his fancy without control, checks, and balances.

The late Ado Ibrahim was a man of means and enormous influence. He established his footprints in the corporate world and was a top player in various boardroom politics and decision-making. Ohinoyi Ibrahim, for a long time, was the chairman of Nestle Plc, a leading blue-chip multinational company with one of the largest capitalisations on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

Ado Ibrahim had the key to most, if not all, of Nigerian leaders’ homes. He built networks of friendships, built bridges of unity across the country, and was highly revered. His long reign brought development and transformation to Ebiraland in an unprecedented fashion. But he was harassed by Bello like a schoolboy and an inconsequential man.

It was widely alleged that the ensuing trauma and psychological drain arising from the high-handed state action hastened the old man’s demise. As if everything was a playbook with a predetermined closure, the Ohinoyi died and was succeeded by Bello’s hand-pick, a retired Nigerian Air Force warrant officer, a non-commissioned military personnel! In this modern era, when communities put forward their finest for ascension to traditional stools, it beggars belief that such was the choice of the then-governor. But no one dares express a view contrary to the one held by the landlord of Lugard House. Not even in public health matters!

An example: Bello’s denial of the reality of the coronavirus disease was foolhardy. Against real and scientific proofs of its devastation, the then-governor insisted it was invented, political, and did not exist in the state. At the peak of his folly, he offered to quarantine health officers who were on assignment in Kogi from the FCT. Hospitals and doctors were hoodwinked not to do or say anything contrary to the governor’s position. As the denial went on, the virus sent many victims, including Justice Nasir Ajanah, to the great beyond. Ajanah, a fellow Ebira and former chief judge of the state, died on June 20, 2020, at a COVID-19 isolation centre in Abuja. Many people died unannounced across the state.

Bello exported his brand of muscle-flexing, foolhardy, non-consensual, and defiant attitude to national politics by defying entreaties to step down for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu during the pre-presidential primary of the APC. Following his pro-democracy credentials, the former two-term governor of Lagos state emerged as the national leader of the party by consensus.

Bello insisted he must contest at all costs to ruffle feathers and show a non-existent electoral strength against him. In the end, he was roundly trounced at the primary election by Asiwaju Tinubu and the other aspirants to prove to him that he was a novice in national politics. In fact, Bello, who was 47 years old at the time, scored a symbolic 47 votes out of the over 2,000 ballots available for grabs. It is instructive that Bello’s score was 16 less than the total 63 Kogi delegates that voted at the convention.

One enduring blight on his political garment in his Kogi central senatorial zone was the desperate recourse to cutting off some communities in the zone from the rest during the senatorial election between current Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the APC’s candidate. Knowing the electoral strength of Akpoti-Uduaghan, Bello put an earth crusher on the road to sever the link between Ihima and the rest of Kogi Central to make rigging easy for his foot soldiers. However, the pyrrhic victory of his candidate was later upturned by the tribunal, which gave victory to Akpoti-Uduaghan.

While leaders build a complementarity of peace, development, and prosperity, Bello’s ego-driven governance approach is to grab power and use it against the people. His failed power grab during the Kogi central senatorial election polarised the communities in the zone and made peace elusive and a mirage. From reports and footage of record mammoth attendances at project commissioning events, it is clear that the senator representing the zone, Akpoti-Uduaghan, is the zone’s main rallying point and unifier.

Recently, Bello was instrumental in the installation of a Sarkin Hausa/Fulani of Ebiraland, much to the dismay and consternation of the people. In an era marked by unrelenting banditry, kidnapping and unprecedented security breaches in the central senatorial zone and other zones of the state, the coronation of someone from the ethnic stock of the suspected marauders as Sarkin in Ebiraland is, to say the least, insensitive. What politics would prioritise the interest of blood thirsty sojourners over and above the interest of the natives if not a self-serving and diabolical interest?

It was the same overlord-like approach with which he invited the itinerant Fulani cattle rearers to the state back then during his time as governor that he is employing now to show communal distrust and undermine the delicate peace structure in Ebiraland, even out of power. Bello had issued the invitation to further endear himself to former President Buhari and boost his credentials for his illusory presidential ambition.

The people are averse to a Sarkin Hausa/Fulani in Ebiraland, but Bello wants it to play his political games, which may ultimately become a keg of gunpowder that will rupture the peace of the society. By ensuring that his wish prevails, Bello sets a dangerous precedent in a state where the Fulanis are already contesting for space and territory with our people in some parts of the state.

Peace is imperative in Kogi Central. So, it is in all parts of the state for her progress, development, and prosperity. State actors must refrain from overbearing tendencies with huge potential to plunge the state into a conflagration now or in the future. Our leaders’ actions must be guided by the greatest good for the greatest number. We must make collective efforts to galvanise our people to embrace values that will ensure peaceful cohabitation and convert our diversity to potent strength and synergy for development. That is the only way to go.

Ozovehe, who hails from Inoziomi, Okene, Kogi state, writes from Ilorin, the Kwara state capital