Senator Mohammed Ohiare represented Kogi Central Senatorial District in the fourth Republic Senate during which he was the leader of the West African Caucus at the Pan African Parliament. In this interview with FRANCIS KADIRI, the APC chieftain, who is still in court to reclaim what he describes as the “people’s stolen mandate,” accuses the Governor Yahaya Bello-administration of destroying the state and the Kogi APC. He also alleges that the Bello administration has failed to deliver on its electoral promises. Excerpts:
Your party, the APC, won the governorship election in Kogi State. What is your assessment of the performance of the administration in the state?
Of course, the governorship election in Kogi State was able to bring about a change of the ruling party in the state from PDP to APC, but there is yet to be a change in leadership style needed to restore hope to the masses.
This means that the fact that government changed hands from Idris Wada to Yahaya Bello has not translated to any improvement in the lives of the people.
So, the APC electoral promises have been abandoned by the Bello administration. Workers’ salaries have not been paid as was the case with the Wada administration. There is monumental infrastructure decay and there are no job opportunities for the youths; no progressive direction for the state.
What do you mean by lack of direction for the state?
The Yahaya Bello administration has failed to put in place a formidable structure to combat years of misrule and infrastructure decay from which the state has severely suffered. But it engages in needleless political vindictiveness. This is my latest problem with the Yahaya Bello administration.
But the government claims to be fighting insecurity…
(Cuts in) It is only a government that has lost focus that goes about arresting innocent people in the name of fighting insecurity. A number of people have been arrested and I don’t hope to defend any of them, but I strongly advise the government to desist from arresting innocent Nigerians. The government knows the bad eggs and it should know where they are.
I support the need for a secured Kogi State and a secured Kogi Central, but the Yahaya Bello administration must be careful not to use political power for political vindictiveness.
What are the standard parameters by which you arrived at these judgments?
Facts are sacred and it is also your duty as a journalist to verify the state of Kogi under Yahaya Bello. This problem is not about me alone. I only feel obliged to bring them to public light in order for the people to see what Bello and his team are doing with the mandate entrusted to him.
Apart from that, change is a physical thing that does not require rocket science to verify. As a people-oriented ideological political party, the APC represents a change from all the evils that the PDP represented. So the change of government in Kogi State should have meant a significant improvement in the lives of the people; a change in leadership style from self-centered leadership of the Wadaled PDP administration to a people-oriented leadership that will deliver good tidings to the electorate.
When the APC won the series of elections in Kogi State, we were happy because we thought that the ideology of the APC will be impacted upon Kogi State. Unfortunately, that has not happened. The industrial sectors that would have created job opportunities for Kogites are not being developed. Education is still difficult and the institutions are in a state of neglect.
So, the state has been somersaulting even after the victory of our party. At first, APC had overall victory in the senatorial elections, which produced senators occupying the 3 seats in the Senate. Then the APC won 12 seats in the State House of Assembly and then won 6 seats in the Federal House of Representatives.
When we had these victories, we nursed the good hope that the masses would have an APC governor who would rule according to the progressive manifesto of the APC.However, on the verge of victory, God called the flag bearer – Prince Abubakar Audu to glory. We accepted his untimely death in good faith because it is only God who knows what is good for us.
As leader of Kogi Central, I was consulted and we looked around us for a candidate we loved and trusted. I am not just among the party chieftains that chose Yahaya Bello, I also fought for him because he had formidable enemies. Our support for Bello was in order for him to deliver good leadership to the state. Sadly, since that time till date, nothing positive has happened.
In what ways would you say there is lack of direction?
The unfriendly policies of the administration have negative impact on the unity of the APC in Kogi State. Governor Yahaya Bello never found it necessary to call a stakeholders meeting in order to solve the problems he caused.
For your information, as we speak, there is no direction for the state. The government in power is running a one-manshow. There is obvious disarray in the party.
However, some of us who have sacrificed so much for the Kogi APC have decided not to fold our hands and watch the destruction of a party we worked hard to build. So at the appropriate time, we will use the right strategies to address the problem.
What is worse of is that the victory, which strategies we all fashioned out, and which we thought will deliver to the people the good tidings they desired, is being wasted and misused. I hope you know that political victory can be wasted. Yes, political victory becomes a waste when the victor abuses and misapplies it such that it becomes counterproductive.
This is the sad state of the APC victory in the Kogi guber race. However, the party is not as responsible for the problem as the governor is.
Let me warn ahead of time that if this situation continues, the APC will find it very difficult to return to Lugard House come 2017.
As a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I have been in legal tussle. I am not interested in any manipulation by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The same applies to the Senator from the East, and house of Reps from Ogori Magongo and Okene constituency and even some House of Assemblies candidates from the East.
I wonder why a court of law should argue that a party which won elections should be banned from participating in re-run of elections for that same office. This unjust decision shows that there is a preemptive decision to kick that party out of its victory.
More so, this unjust decision is being meted out on a party that is not supposed to be punished under the circumstance, especially in the case of Taraba, Anambara, Jigawa and other states. They say they have banned our party from participating in fresh elections. That decision is unacceptable, so we are still in court to fight the injustice.
The sad issue is that when you spend so much time on litigations, you will have little or no time to concentrate on governance. This is the problem we are faced with.
I have been in the Senate and served in a number of committees. I could have channeled my experience to the development of our country, but litigation and the time it takes will not let me, even when I am eventually declared winner. So a lot would have been lost.