KOGI STATE CRISIS: Yahaya Bello, Deputy Gov. Clash Worsens As Ibaji LG Administrator Sacked

Gov Yahaya Adoza Bello 

The ruling All Progressives Congress APC is certainly not having it smooth in virtually all of its chapters in the 36 states of the Federation if reports in the polity is anything o go by.

Kogi state, whose governor has attracted negative publicity especially in the social and conventional media consistently, has again attracted attention following news of the likely defection of his Deputy anytime soon.

Information trending in the social circuit reports that the whole problem between the Deputy Governor and his boss, Gov. Yahaya Bello began, when at a function in Idah early this year, he prayed God to remove anyone constituting himself as impediment to the success of the state; a statement that was reported and misrepresented that the governor was been referred to as major problem of the state.

This incident is reported to have not gone down well with the Governor as news of the Deputy's grumblings of being starved of funds in his official capacity as #2 man who, some sources close to the Governor, say it is not true owing regular allocation of funds to the Office of the Deputy Governor.

Although, the Director General, Media and Strategy to the Governor has since dismissed claims of any rift between the two leaders, close watchers of the souring relationship between the duo insists this assertion is not correct.

To buttress this, associates of the Deputy Governor and his wife disclosed that they have not been paid in the last eight months and the monetary imprest to the Office had since been stopped.

In an attempt to further water down the already simmering relationship between the Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello and his Deputy, Special Adviser on Assembly Matters to the Governor, Hon. Haruna Yusuf, in a reaction denied the existence of such rift and any planned impeachment to remove the Deputy Governor.

Yusuf, in a statement said; "We perceive that all attempts are being made to create a friction between the Executive and the Legislature in Kogi State".

"Let me emphatically state that the robust symbiotic relationship that both arms of Government enjoy today, cannot be destroyed by wishful dreamers", he stated.

The Special Adviser therefore urged those behind such evil thoughts to desist from it as such tricks are old fashioned.

"Any attempt to drag the Hon. Speaker and his members into such evil plot, will always fail", he insisted.

Stressing further, the Special Adviser stated that there is no such correspondence from the Executive Governor of Kogi State lying before the House of Assembly.

"I thereby urge the public to disregard such malicious story, as the content of the story is conjured from dreamland", he stressed.

However, available information reveals that all is certainly not well with the deputy governor and his boss, following his absence in many satte functions and assignments which, ordinarily falls under his office as Deputy Governor, in the last eight months.

Keen observers have however, wondered why the power and water supply to his office would have been cut off four months ago, with many alleging that he has began moving his personal belongings out of his office.

To give credence to these reports, just last week, Hon. Tom Offor, Administrator Ibaji LGA, the Deputy Governor’s area was removed from office.

The announcement was said to have caught the Deputy Governor napping as he had no idea of the removal from office, of the Ibaji LG administrator.

Meanwhile, these travails of the Deputy governor is said not to be receiving  following what many describe as his evasive nature from the people even when it was rosy for him.

It was also alleged that he has not been approachable, tight fisted, with many saying he is not to be pitied, as, having rode on the back of a lion, was doomed to end up in the belle of the lion.

For now, observers are watching with keen interest to see how the perceived power play between the governor and his deputy plays out, as even traditional rulers and chiefs from the deputy governor’s constituency who are in the picture of the Deputy Governor’s travails having been brought into the crisis have not been able to help him.