Ahmed Usman Ododo: A half-year report card

Minders of Ahmed Usman Ododo, the governor of the confluence state of Kogi, flung him into the public square of opprobrium and derision last May. Ododo by the way was the auditor general in charge of local government under Bello. The orchestra of sycophants he inherited from his benefactor and predecessor, Yahaya Bello, eager to ingratiate themselves with him articulated a ‘First 100 Days In Office’ programme for him. These included Ododo having to name his specific achievements within his preliminary months on the saddle. Ododo’s meeting with Nuhu Ribadu, the National Security Adviser, (NSA); a civic reception organised in his honour in Okene, his hometown, and his participation in a meeting of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) in Abuja, were listed as his notable achievements.

Within the period, Ododo alongside his colleagues from Ondo and Taraba states, Lucky Aiyedatiwa and Kefas Agbo, had a meeting with the minister for agriculture and food security, Abubakar Kyari. This perfunctory obligation was also recorded as one of his feats within his first 100 days.

Days and weeks thereafter, Ododo was a cadaver for analysts and public scholars, scandalised by the newcomer governor’s ludicrous yet proudly publicised report card. Many people from Kogi became the butt of jokes by those who believed the state was capable of better quality brand ambassadors. Ododo’s case was not helped by the fact of the circumstances of his emergence as governor and successor to Yahaya Bello. The latter’s hellish and brutish, eight-year sojourn in Lugard House, Lokoja is best forgotten.

Ododo emerged courtesy of a benefactor who visited so much malevolence and meanness on the polity. This credential easily blighted his candidature and acceptability. Bello’s current travails in the hands of the nation’s foremost anti-graft agency which has made a scurrying fugitive of the man who patented himself the “white lion” during his virtual monarchy, is largely construed as karma come to justice. A successor installed by such a character must of necessity share his DNA, was the understandably popular belief.

I have, in the course of duty over the decades, encountered and engaged robustly with all but two military and civilian governors of Kogi state since the inception of the state. From the foundation military administrator in 1991, Colonel Danladi Zakari, through Abubakar Audu, (the departed pioneer civilian governor of the state) who appointed me director of information and public affairs in 1992, I was intertwined with the evolution of the state. Paul Omeruo, also an army colonel who succeeded Audu in 1993, appointed me his chief press secretary in 1995. He passed me on to Bzigu Afakirya, (of blessed memory), his successor in 1996. I didn’t get to meet Augustine Aniebo who replaced Afakirya in 1998. I also had varying degrees of latter-day relationships with Audu who returned as democratically elected governor in 1999, and his successors Ibrahim Idris and Idris Wada.

I had a fleeting encounter with Bello back in 2017 while I pursued state assistance for the young family of my colleague, brother and friend, Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo, who tragically passed earlier that year. Bello was inaccessible to the two-man delegation empanelled by the board of trustees of the Adinoyi-Ojo Onukaba Endowment Fund, to follow up with him on possible state assistance for our fallen compatriot’s family. Maxwell Gidado, SAN, OON, professor of law and my good self constituted that team. My chance meeting with Bello in Lokoja, in mid-2017, was at an event organised by the Kogi state chapter of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, (NUJ) which invited me. I graced the high table with Bello at the event and he promised to get his chief of staff to fix a meeting on the subject. He never did. That was my first ever, and only encounter with him.

Beyond glimpses of him on television and in photographs of media reportage on him, I’ve never set my eyes on Ododo. He doesn’t know me either. Except if he’s been following my work as a media practitioner, who comes from his state. Ododo may yet surprise many, however, judging from his much-spoken-about humanistic performance thus far. He may be gradually trying to carve an identity for himself, despite the backstage encumbrances of his erstwhile boss. Ododo, we are hearing, is humble, unassuming and sensitive. He is said to have prioritised workers’ welfare thus far. They tell you he began by paying a markedly improved 80% of salaries compared to his benefactor who undermined his constituents with unbelievably mendicant sums. Ododo now, however, is said to pay 100% emoluments to his constituents. Kogi state remains a “civil service” entity. It is nowhere near your Lagos, Ogun, Rivers, Delta, Oyo, which are blessed with sundry producing and manufacturing concerns which impact their domestic economies. The local economy of Kogi state is powered by the spending capacity of civil servants. Whatever impacts the wallets of bureaucrats therefore takes a heavy toll on their capacities to patronise the open markets, shops and pharmacies.

Kogi state was notorious for state-induced violence and insecurity under Ododo’s former principal. Political top shots were alleged to have cultivated and sustained “private armies.” The streets were ruled by substances, machetes and automatic weapons. These combined to scare indigenes of the state and indeed risk taking investors from the state. It is suggested that the air in Kogi state these days is more temperate. Ododo was reportedly on the front foot when some miscreants terrorised student communities in Adankolo, Bassa, Crusher and Felele districts of the state capital in March. Three suspects were arrested and have since been arraigned in court. Ododo equally made vociferous appeals to the nation’s topmost security commands when students of the state-owned Confluence University of Science and Technology, (CUSTECH), were abducted weeks ago.

Helicopter-backed special detachments were swiftly deployed to comb the forests and thickets of Kogi, including the state’s abutments with Kwara and Ekiti states. Kogi state, by the way, is bordered by nine states in the North Central, South West, South East and South-South zones. Not forgetting its close proximity to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). This geographical reality therefore makes the state susceptible to infiltration from different entry points. Working with ground troops, local hunters and vigilantes on the recent operation, some kidnapped victims were rescued and some of their ransom-seeking abductors were summarily apprehended. That episode is said to have sent a clear message to criminal venturers that Kogi state is a forbidden zone for mischief. It also rekindled the belief of the people that the incumbent leadership in the state can protect its own after all.

The Ododo dispensation has also embarked on an ambitious infrastructural renewal effort at the local level. Internal roads in major communities in the state are at various levels of completion. These include roads in Egbe, (Yagba West); Aiyetoro-Gbedde, (Ijumu); Mopa (Mopamuro); Felele-Agbaja (Lokoja LGA); Oguma (Bassa LGA); Idah, (Idah LGA); Abejukolo, (Omala LGA) and Anyigba (Dekina LGA). Instructively, this first list of communities which will benefit from a gradual community rebuild programme precludes any community in Ododo’s homestead in Kogi Central. Internally generated revenue (IGR) in the state, recently posted a remarkable leap towards a monthly average of ₦2 billion. For a state like Kogi, this means a lot. This upward ascent of the state’s IGR may be a result of increasing transparency in the revenue collection process, just maybe.

About 200 tractors, we hear, are being recalled by the Kogi state government for rehabilitation. This is just as the Ododo administration is reported to be tapering towards the prioritisation of agriculture. The government is launching a “Wet Season Agricultural Intervention Programme” to this effect towards ensuring food security. The agenda also involves making agriculture attractive to the teeming youth population as against the subsisting craze for “political involvement.” Farm locations have been identified in 76 communities, in the 21 local government areas in the state. The government intends to prepare 7,000 hectares of land for farming in the first instance. This may seem a far cry from the one million hectares which Umaru Bago, the Niger state governor, has prepared in his state. But every journey, the old saying reminds us, begins with the very first step. Farmers will be provided with free seeds and chemicals towards the actualisation of this project. Three crops, cassava, maize and rice, are being emphasised in the experimental endeavour.

At harvest, the state government hopes to buy back the produce, concede 60% of the earnings to the farmers and take the smaller 40%, as an incentive to ambivalent farmers. If Ododo is thinking and acting in the directions we have identified above, he could be said to have set about on the right course. Kogi state has lost substantial segments of its nearly 33 years of existence to laggards and loafers in the name of helmsmen. He needs to do much more though to rekindle the faith of his constituents in the committed sensitivity and service of his era to have their backs round the clock, round the calendar. History is ever in the firm grips of the neck of the pen, as an evergreen assessor and unforgettable retainer of institutional memory. Kogi state must awaken from perpetual sedation. And now is the time.

Olusunle, PhD, is a Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors (FANA).