Until a rumour that speculated he might be dead, after some medical complications, no one knew where Kogi State governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, was. Thankfully though, that rumour put paid to all that, as it elicited an official response from the state government.
“I want to state clearly here, for the avoidance of doubt, that the rumour lacks any iota of truth,” responded Fanwo Kingsley, the governor’s spokesman. “To put the record straight, the governor is hale and hearty, healthy and unwavering in his vigour to make Kogi State the ‘Confluence of Excellence.”
That, to be sure, was reassuring. After the sudden death of Prince Abubakar Audu, after literally breasting the tape to win the state’s gubernatorial polls and the indifferent health of former Governor Idris Wada, Kogi State certainly deserves more cheering news.
Earlier in his statement, however, Mr. Kingsley had blundered on a most illogical claim, that the controversy, over his governor’s whereabouts, was due to “enemies”. His exact words: “It is a reflection of the depth the enemies of Kogi State have gone in their desperate angst against the state.”
That is rich. If there is any enemy here, it is only the Yahaya Bello government that failed so abysmally to inform the public on the whereabouts of its principal.
If that had happened, there would have been no death rumour, which later provoked the emotive reaction of fictive enemies against the state, built on the fallacy that whoever is no friend of the governor is also no friend of Kogi. That is clearly illogical.
What is at play here are transparency versus opacity in governance, as well as the imperative of due process.
First, due process. The Kogi State governorship is a public institution, nay, a public trust. The governor, as candidate, openly declared his interest in the office. The election was an open affair, though in this very case, the death of Abubakar and the pick of Yahaya Bello, made the process very controversial. The Bello inauguration too was a public affair. So, was the extinguishing of the last flicker of judicial protest, against his election, by the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
And due process. If the governor must leave his post for any reason at all, it is trite, by constitutional provisions, that he should hand over to his deputy, as acting governor. This wasn’t done in this case.
So, the occupier of such an open office cannot just vamoose, for whatever reason, claiming privacy. That is not part of the open deal; and whatever flak such government gets from the public, it has nobody but itself to blame.
The governor’s spokesman also claimed the governor was on a two-week break to terminate on November 12, which the state legislature endorsed. That is hardly classified material! So, why was it not in the public space, until rumours purporting the governor’s death escalated? Again, this would appear a collapse at the Kogi State government’s attempt at hush-hush. That is clearly undemocratic.
It is strange that even after the secrecy that mishandled the late President, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s health, and its grave constitutional crisis only tempered by the “doctrine of necessity” which the Senate invoked, the Kogi State government seems to have learnt nothing.
That is bad and unacceptable. It is not good for a fledgling democracy, which growth area remains strong institutions, not strong personalities.
We wish Governor Bello well and hope he is armed with the good health he needs to run Kogi, a state that would appear especially unlucky, since the re-birth of democracy in 1999.
But the government he leads must embrace openness and transparency. Whatever is the state of the governor’s health, the people have a right to know. Besides, as governor, you cannot just vanish like a rat into a hole.
If the Bello government has learnt these two lessons, Kogi State should be better for it.
Clued from:The Nation Newspaper
No comments:
Post a Comment