The Myth of Propaganda and Paranoia: Can Yahaya Bello Outsmart History?
For two years now, one of the most sensational claims in Kogi political history has been that the former governor of Kogi state, Alhaji Yahaya Bello is indisputably a “Messiah” whose only achievement is to be applauded and hype to high heaven to cover for his charades of ineptness in the donation of his “begotten son”, – Usman Ahmed Ododo, the present governor of Kogi state.
It’s a story that has become folklore, painted in government sponsored documentaries, media domain, and even in official speeches of the present governor and other allied. Yet, beneath the drama lies a far more nuanced and illusive truth, one that exposes how power, propaganda, and paranoia characterized Bello’s 8years cramp often with smear, sorrow and blood.
The Yahaya Bello story is as unattractive as it sounds, is a historical fact and yet a political narrative masterfully engineered to reinforce his mage as detribaliszed or as the destructible “Samson” who must destroy a standing enemies of his unworthy marriage. This storyline has been chronicled, plotted and fantasies whispered to uninformed and susceptible. Bello’s tally stretched gullibility, including not just unverified and unconfirmed schemes, farcical psy-ops, but even ideas that never executed, like a double – edged – sword promise made, to make Okuns and Igala succeeds him as the next governor. However, this inflation was strategic.
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The origin of this “attempts” – myth propaganda and Paranoia was a buildup siege with resilience and formidability against imperial structure of the Igala power stayed-put. An attempt that was seen as conny, volatile and backbreaking, especially with the “maradonaic” nature at which the former Deputy Governor, David Onoja was casted in that unholy matrimony between himself and his boss, the “White lion”.
Today, Bello’s declassified record, however, tells a different story. A story of an illegitimate hero. Even though the “Ibiras” his compatriots and not only them, some Okuns as well sees in him a hero, but I call it a despotic hero whose government was known to be one of the hybrid of ruthlessness and high-handedness.
His incompetent, marked more by bureaucratic confusion and moral hypocrisy than by genuine operational sophistication. The line between intelligence and folly blurred him beyond recognition. Bello will continue to enjoy unforgettable memories of frustration, suffering and aggression that has reflected the deep anxieties in the life of many people in Kogi state.
To be fair and context clear, in a sane clime, should someone like Yahaya Bello move freely? not to talk of being folly celebrated. Today, we see Yahaya Bello bruised-ego cloaked in the rhetoric of national security in a state-sized billions assets case. “Owa nyan fan da bi opolo seun yan loju elegusi, tii elegusi ogbudo yi lata” (moving unhurt in the face of the law). What a country!
We see in Ododo, a mongoose nature at least, a new sheriff who has exposed former governor’s folly in the area of salary payment. while himself has not done much in the interest of infrastructural development and capacity building for the teeming unemployed youths roaming about the nooks and cranny of Kogi state is seen as a lesser god.
But more worrisome, is the unwarranted
absurdity, revealing in the myth of both a moral embarrassment and a convenient scapegoat for some individuals within the corridor of politics, especially the “Okuns” who have lost their sanity by thinking Yahaya Bello has done Kogi state a greater good and therefore must be revered as such. However, the story In a sense, is deliberately inflated for opposite ends, one to sustain handouts, the other to bury guilt.
At the end of the day, let’s see if these attempts” are more, about the politics of myth-making?. Because the truth, as declassified as history has shown, Yahaya Bello is closer to a dozen ill-conceived attempts of being seen as an asset of political worths…. Yet, his inflated version endures because it satisfies both psychological and economical needs of some individuals’ survival. But definitely will not last more than a morsel. Certainly Yahaya Bello cannot outsmart history, but whether good or bad, time shall tell!
©️ Martins Mejabi
Journalist and Political Scientist based in Kogi
