Open Letter To The Governor -elect, Ahmed Usman Ododo
..setting agenda(1)
By Ozumi Abdul
Dear Governor -elect, Alhaji Ahmed Usman Ododo.
Permit me to quickly congratulate you once again on your victory as the Kogi state governor-elect, in the November 11, 2023 governorship election.
Your victory, no doubt is a testament to the fact that Kogi agenda supercedes that of any primordial ethnic chauvinism and agenda. To this extent, I enjoin you to see your triumph three weeks ago as a pyrrhic victory of no victor no vanquish.
The victory indeed is for our nascent and fledgling democracy, as well as all Kogites who trooped out en mass on the election day to elect you .
In reciprocation, your administration is not only expected to hit the ground running, but also hit it flying to repay the faith and confidence the majority of Kogi electorates had in you during the poll by according you their thumbs.
It’s important for you to understand now, that your reelection bid in 2027 God’s-willing, starts earnestly from the moment you were declared winner of the election three weeks ago by the INEC, and subsequently issued Certificate of Return (CoR).
We men of the pen profession by the grace of God will constantly and consistently be breathing down the neck of your administration to deliver the dividends of democracy to the entirety of Kogites.
We will be reminding you where and when necessary to honour the pacts you signed with the Kogi electorates during your electioneering campaigns.
The outgoing administration of Governor Yahaya Bello might evade the scathing appraisals and assessments of the *Ebira Pen Men (EPM)*, an arm of *Ebira Media Forum*, but be rest assure that your incoming government will NEVER enjoy such leverages.
Dear Governor-elect, Alhaji Ahmed Usman Ododo, be rest assure that the design of our investigative journalism laden website, *Kogi Tracker*, that will be keeping tracks of the fiscal policy, monetary policy, policy decision, budgeting, contracts awards and monitoring of expenditures of your administration is in the offing, and there will be no hiding place in terms of lack of transparency and accountability for your administration.
Contracts in Kogi state will never be only awarded on papers again, without their existence in reality.
Never again will Kogi state and Kogites suffer from the bereavement of insensitivity and insincerity of governance.
Thus, this is why it’s crucially important for you to get your acts together rightly from the start, beginning with the choice of your kitchen cabinet and other appointees in your incoming government.
Dear Governor-elect, Alhaji Ahmed Usman Ododo, even though I would want you to exude the same administrative sagacity, tenacity, audacity, temerity, gallantry, ruggedness and doggedness of your boss, Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello, because when a lion gives forth to a cub it’s expected to hunt, I wouldn’t on the flip side also want you to repeat the same mistake of his administration in terms of personnel that would make up your kitchen cabinet, because that singular decision really hurt, halt and haunt his administration.
It is important that you understand that when the frog at the front falls into a pit, others behind need to take caution, hence the need to be cautious of sycophantic and parasitic bootlickers, lackeys, and adulatory backscratchers, who might be hobnobbing around you now to be part of your kitchen cabinet. They WILL NEVER mean well for the success of your administration; rather, their avaricious self-aggrandizements.
Having said these, , let me also quickly enjoin you that even though your government won’t be exclusively and entirely that of Anebiras; notwithstanding, it’s also valid for you to discern that you are an Anebira first, before being a Kogite.
In fact, you were once a Kwaran back in the years before the creation of Kogi state, but at no point did your Ebira Identity and heritage changed, it has always been a generational one. So, this translates to mean that home is home, come rain come shine.
Ozemetuyirenuani jehu, (no interpretation, strictly for Anebiras), as an Ebira adage would say, thus my plea to your incoming administration is to pay rapt attention to the sorry, despicable, deplorable and pitiful plights of Ebiraland and Anebiras, especially those at the very grassroots, whom this outgoing government appeared to have massively eluded.
It’s well known that we Anebiras since the creation of Kogi state in 1991, have been on the back-foot in all developmental indexes when compared to other two regions.
Not only have we been disadvantaged and orphaned by infrastructural developments, but had also suffered untold dearth of human capital developments, chiefly because of our lack of access to power, until 2016, when by divine intervention Governor Yahaya Bello assumed Luggard House.
No doubt, we may have experienced some modest achievements under his administration which are miles better off than when our perennial rivals across water head sway as governors.
However, these ‘modest’ achievements to many Anebiras are still very unsatisfactorily derisory and unbefitting of a region that wields power, especially considering how power-thirst the Anebiras had been before finally hitting the gold of becoming governor in 2026.
To some Anebiras, it’s as though our metaphorical banana flowering-trunk is sitting deep in a waterlogged soil, while its growth still remains stunted because of lack of water.
As such, Dear Governor-elect Ahmed Usman Ododo, Ebiraland and Anebiras are already anxiously in immediate need of your incoming administration to intervene in some really pressing issues of serious concerns such as:
t’s unexplainably saddening, heartbreaking and heart-wrecking that there is water everywhere in our dear Ebiraland and paradoxically there are no portable water supplies for our people’s basic needs.
How would one defend himself and his state to friends and colleagues of other states that there is still an extraction of Kogi state that is adored as confluence state with lacework of waterways, that’s still suffering from grave lack of portable water? How? That’s hard to defend.
“…Hold Salami Ozigi Deedat responsible for lack of water in Ebira Land…” Governor Yahaya Bello was once quoted to have said this.
Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello and the Kogi state Commissioner for Water Resources, Abdulmumin Danga
But how and why heads haven’t rolled after this governor’s remarks, knowing fully well that the awarded water project contract had hit the rock?
Why have people not been indicted, executed and sent to jail for this crime against Anebiras since water is life?
Why would Ebiraland still be suffering from portable water supply, with a certain Osara Dam in Kogi Central, which is adjudged to be the largest source of water in the state, as well as other two dams like the Ekuku and Water Works Dams that can be easily dredged to supply portable water to our dear people?
Why has this government failed woefully to invest in these dams for the succours, benefits and respites of our dear people, who have been suffering from age-long water scarcity, particularly during the winter?
Why is it that all this government could do was to dig some dysfunctional and ‘camouflaged’ boreholes, painted in Nigeria colours, with ‘GYB’ insignia emblazoning them in some strategic spots across Ebiraland?
Dear Governor-elect Ahmed Usman Ododo, in as much as these above questions still remain unanswered for now, provision of portable water supply across Ebiraland should kindly and swiftly be the number one priority of your incoming government upon resumption of office.
As a matter of urgency, Dear Ododo, I humbly beseech you to kindly endeavor to earnestly and abruptly fight this menace in our blessed land to a standstill, because millions have lived without love, but none has lived without water.
I want you to reciprocate to Ebiraland and Anebiras the love they showed and showered on you three weeks ago and make availability of portable water supply in all Ebira districts, homes and streets a necessity.
Take Government Back To Our People At The Grassroots, Halt Percentage Payments At LG Level
Dear Usman Ododo, your government should also as a matter of priority endeavor to deviate from this current administration’s uninspiring and demeaning countenances towards grassroot governance, which had inflicted multi-dimensional untold hardship on our dear people.
Ensure your government is a total deviation from this outgoing one, by not making it an oligarchical government, where the few in government glutinously and avariciously enrich themselves, family members and even girlfriends, while leaving people at the grassroots at the mercy of penurious abject poverty.
Government must return to the people, I mean people at the grassroots who sun-dry themselves for the sake of your success at the polling booths three weeks ago, on the 11th November 2023.
Dear Governor-elect Ododo, ensure your government implement grassroots democracy and grassroots governance mechanisms.
On this premise, the pivotal role of local governments in grassroots development should never be overemphasized by your incoming administration.
Grassroots governance should form the folcrum of your administration, because they are better positioned than other levels of government (state and federal) to
engender developments due to their closeness to the people at the local level.
At the grassroot level, given their limited areas of coverage, it is easier for local governments to plan and execute programmes that can impact directly on every member of their communities, since local governments are part and parcel of their local communities with intimate knowledge of the needs, aspirations and preferences of the people. Thus, to all intents and purposes, the local governments are the most effective agents of development at the local or grassroots level.
This brings us to the umpteenth controversial claims of denigratory and deprecatory percentage payments of salaries at the local government level, that has continually marred the lifespan of this outgoing government of Governor Bello.
Dear Ododo, if you want your government to be free of administrative quagmires, illegitimacy, crisis, dilemma and controversies, then strive to understand the current politics of percentage payments at the local government level, then address it headlong and ensure your government put an abrupt end to it.
The consequences of the unending percentage payments have been evident in the lives of local government workers. Many struggle to make ends meet, provide for their families, and maintain their standard of living. This situation has also led to brain drain, as some employees seek better opportunities in other states with more stable financial systems.
To this end, Dear Governor-elect Ahmed Usman Ododo, the state government under your watch should ensure the accurate and prompt release of the funds due to each local government from the monthly revenue from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) which are being received through the State-Local Government Joint Account; an account which governor wields absolute influence on.
The unending percentage payments of salaries for local government workers in Kogi state are a grave concern that requires your urgent attention Dear Governor-elect Ododo.
The state government under your watch must prioritise the financial stability of its local governments and ensure that its workers are paid promptly and in full. Only through concerted efforts can this issue be resolved and the lives of these essential workers be improved.
