Ibro and 2019: We Won’t Go Back to the Dark Days of Thuggery, Ghost-Workership and Enrichment of Few Individuals

The build up to the 2019 general elections in Kogi State is garnering a beautiful momentum as interests and wishes are flowing in in torrents. Every man displays his wares, and tries to convince the prospective buyers on what he has on the table. Since it is an open market, buyers have choices as to which seller tickles their fancy. This is the case between the rapacious PDP of the inglorious days of endless doom and APC of this century. I shall take turn to explain the role played by the PDP in our political space, and how the PDP and its agents do not represent sane politics of this generation.

The birth of PDP in 2003 was the beginning of the fall from the developmental and social unity the people that were once knitted together in love and in unison of purpose regardless of their different socio-political affiliations had enjoyed. The confluence of two strange rivers symbolizes the unity of purpose that characterizes the spirit, the working relationship and the marriage of people differentiated by tribe and clan, but united by the vision to succeed.

Nobody was at anybody’s neck before 2003, and the presentation of the PDP on the political scene in Kogi State
brought for the very first time with it the polarization of the people on the divided line of political discord, bitterness and manslaughter; the people that were once knitted together by good intention to succeed regardless of their differences took to hatred, bitterness, and rancour. With its slogan, “Changi dole”, PDP government under Ibro rode to victory perhaps through the support of some powerful forces that found him malleable to their whims and caprices, and saw Audu as too maverick to do their biddings. The change Ibro brought was aberrant, a lamentable deviation from the established norms.

One, apart from the fact that the government brought a regrettable change to the system by introducing ghost workers into the workforce, the government was also found to seek power and influence by enriching some people it felt could hold their various communities bound by their charismatic and violent personality. Some of these persons were not on the State’s lists of workers, but were being paid by the government on a monthly and even daily bases because it felt they had influence on the State. These men also had some boys they recruited to do their jobs, and were also added to the pay lists of the government; hence, the introduction of ghost into the state workforce. This unhealthy partnership with these people plunged the state in debt that many years after, unless by divine intervention, no government, no matter how good its intention may be, could cleanse the debris of debt that hangs loosely on the State.

Two, thuggery was a strange language in the political clime of the state hitherto 2003, and as I said earlier, people though different in tribe and tongue, were knitted and bound together in love and by work. Nobody discriminated against the other in the state; nobody raised an eyebrow against the other. The government within the time under review introduced thuggery into the political system as a way of exerting its political force on the people and keeping them perpetually bound to it in obeisance.

The government used these thugs to wreak vast devastation in the state, particularly in Igalaland, with Ofu Local Government Area thugs competing and colliding with Dekina Local Government Area thugs, and many vibrant, promising youths from these two local governments lost their precious lives in the struggle to please their pay master. Their parents are still licking their wounds today, and the damage caused to these communities will take a century to be repaired. People lived in fear, and to move from my community, for example, through Ejule in Ofu Local Government back then was like moving through the war-torn country. People scarcely went to bed with their eyes closed.

Three, the government between 2003 and 2015 had the highest allocation ever in the history of Kogi State. How it spent the allocation on the few projects it embarked upon, and then, plunged the state in endless debt remains a wonder to behold. Hitherto the coming of the PDP on the political scene in Kogi State, the Igalas used to have icons (e.g. Audu, Steven Achema, Babayade, etc.) in politics they rally round for advice. Today, no such person exists in Igalaland, and for the people to get it right and have such a voice is an improbable if not impossible mission.

What legacy do the ex-governors want to leave behind after raping the state and wringing it of its succulent juice by their intention to come back to the scene and or present their party is filled with many wonderful questions than answers. What are they coming back to do? To reintroduce thuggery, enrichment of some powerful individuals, hit the people one against the another or to bring in poverty and indirection?

We have learned bitter lessons and in a hard way too. The relative peace we are enjoying today is nothing comparable to what we used to see in the past. We won’t have such an ugly incidence again in our political life in Kogi State! The many months of workers’ verification exercise under the current government to cleanse every trace of the injection of illegal elements into the state workforce and which equally therefore polarized the people and piqued them against the government is the mistrust created by the previous administrations of PDP in the state.

If PDP under Ibro and Wada had laid good legacies while the opportunity was on their laps, and had set good standard of ethical practices, the government of Bello would not have had any trouble to contend with from the outset. The blueprint of good legacies would have formed the basis of this new government; hence, rapid development would have elevated the state and would have placed it in the comity of developed states. Since all the social, economic and human development did not happen under PDP for 12 years, and may not happen now because it is too early to do so, our optimistic tendencies are put into full use, and we are sure of getting them right soon.

Getting our developmental strides in Kogi State will happen, but certainly not under PDP or its current
thronging aspirants.

–  Odih Daniel N.,
Lokoja, Kogi State.
Odih4sure@gmail.com