Dino and Bello: Sodom Preaching to Gomorrah

Gov Bello and Sen. Dino

By Michael Achile Umameh

In Kogi State, democracy has collapsed into tyranny and authoritarianism. 

Sen. Dino Melaye and Gov. Yahaya Bello are the self-serving and sterile heroes of this decay. The 

ongoing irrational and irresponsible altercation between Dino and Bello, leading to a reported death of five innocent students is the height of a betrayal of our collective trust. 

Now they have fresh blood on their hands. 

Dino accusing Bello of fraud, embezzlement and mismanagement, and vice versa, is like Sodom preaching to Gomorrah to repent. 

The mediocre leadership, administrative recklessness, incompetence and inconsistencies of Bello has made Kogi State a playground for Dino. The entire Kogi state has become a husbandry for breeding indigence and despair. 

The two years already spent has been a period of misadventure and gambling with people’s lives and future. This administration must step down from it’s high horse, own up its failures and betrayals, review, and take the right and honest direction, while there is still some glimmer of hope.

The screening of the civil service may have been well-intended but the government was ill-prepared for the magnitude of the rot. The politicians and the senior ranks in the civil service have always been partners in the cycle of corruption and share corrupting practices. 

The whole screening process collapsed upon the inefficiency and inexperience of the handlers. Now the whole civil service is in a horrible mess. The Nigerian civil service is a looting machine and a monster you cannot behead with a pocket knife. 

Bello’s failed attempts at cleansing this Aegean stable gives him away as an amateur politician and administrator. Educational and medical institutions at all levels are on strike, workers are not being paid, pensioners are dying daily and youth restiveness are on the increase. 

The narrowcasting and flame-throwing by the media aides and self-appointed defenders of this government is a gross disservice. This government can still save face by doing the needful, go back to the drawing board and honestly engage the people and govern. 

Gov. Bello is not the messiah we hoped for. He is our future in ruin.

The wild, wasteful and fruitless chase to recall Sen. Dino is a self-inflicted distraction. Bello must stop looking for flimsy excuses not to govern and rectify the mess he has created. Irrational hunt for opposition and critics is a self-defeating alternative to proper and appropriate governance. 

This government should learn to listen, sift and adapt wisdom that comes from genuine opposition and the voices of the despairing Kogites. This government must hang on to the residual respect that is still left, to redeem its future, if it still has any. 

For all the youths of Kogi state, the public squabble between Dino and Bello is mere caricature. In the battle of supremacy and effort to massage their wounded fragile egos, the poor are the victims of this madness. Saka Sheidu died a barbaric death, hurriedly and disrespectfully shoved into the grave in the middle of the night. 

No one ought to die in this way. 

We, the people, are the ultimate losers. Sen. Dino is not worth your blood. Gov. Bello is not worth dying for. Next weekend, they will lavishly dine and wine together in a 5-star hotel in Abuja, with your parents’ unpaid salaries and your grandfathers’ stolen pensions. Do not become a dispensable tool in their hands.

Until the arrears of salaries and pensions are paid; educational and medical institutions re-opened, the needless death of are our people are accounted for, both Sen. Dino and Gov. Bello remain our common enemies. The enemies of our future. 

Let me conclude in the words of Thomas Paine “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain, too cheap, we esteem too lightly”.

Enough is enough. 

Let us be angry. 

Let us now be very very angry with this government.

Be counted when it matters!

Michael Achile Umameh