While John Maxwell famously held that competence is not a substitute for lack of character, in Yahaya Bello, we have a man who clearly has no character to speak of and exhibits no competence expected of a Governor.
Character is the moral infrastructure any God fearing leader should have.
Regardless of the fact that Bello is the chief beneficiary of a mandate he does not in any way deserve, Nigerians will nevertheless, always remember him as the man who lost the APC primaries to the late Governor Audu and whose reaction to that resounding defeat was to start working for the PDP.
Does that show character?
Now, let us look at the recall process itself. The process has been faulted as it is constitutionally deficient, illegal and unlawful as the plaintiff has not been given fair hearing in a clear breach of his fundamental human rights.
Bello is so committed to denigrating the legislature as a separate, independent and co-equal arm of government that as if to prove the point that he lacks all democratic credentials, he is busy having supporters of Senator Melaye arrested for refusing to be part of the recall exercise.
As such we have a completely illegitimate recall process in which a complete failure of a Governor is trying to sack a federal legislator, something not even a President of Nigeria has ever attempted in the entire history of our nation.
While this desperation by Yahaya Bello is clearly a political vendetta as the rising political profile of Melaye is seen as a threat to his dwindling political fortunes in Kogi, the travesty has however revealed the true character of Bello as a man to be watched carefully.
In the first place, it has been revealed that Governor Bello is guilty of double registration with INEC, first in January, 2011 and secondly in May 23, 2017, in Government House, Lokoja.
Again, he is believed to have tampered with INEC’s Direct Data capture machines from where he either extracted signatures of some voters while allegedly forging others to sign in a bid to incriminate Melaye.
Very soon, Governor Yahaya Bello would be on his own as prominent Kogi State indigenes and stakeholders are against the recall and are embarrassed by the Governor’s poor understanding of what governance is all about.
Also, Bunu people have condemned the plot to recall Dino Melaye.
They are exasperated because Dino remains one of the most productive lawmakers with one of the highest number of people oriented bills and motions to his credit in the National Assembly.
Such a person deserves respect and not denigration.
We are happy that Dino has instituted a suit against his recall and we call on him to sustain the suit filed on his behalf to protect his hard earned integrity and his fundamental human rights.
To understand the spirit that drives Dino Melaye, we have to look at his pedigree and some of his achievements in the National Assembly and to his constituents.
Dino Melaye graduated from Ahmadu Bello University with a B.A in Geography. While at ABU he was an active member of the Nigeria Association of Nigeria Students (NANS).
He later represented the Kabba/Bunu/Ijumu Federal constituency in the House of Representatives.
After a successful stint in the Federal House, he contested for the Senate position to represent Kogi West Senatorial district, an election that he won.
Today, more than 30 undergraduates are enjoying his scholarship while he sunk boreholes in various villages in his constituency.
He has also donated drugs worth millions of naira to hospitals and also sustained his widow empowerment programmes.
It is understandable why someone like Yahaya Bello would not like Senator Dino Melaye.
Yahaya Bello’s programmes are anti-people while Dino Melaye is clearly a fighter on the side of the defenseless masses of Kogi State.
Melaye’s revolutionary life was sharpened by the lives of world class heroes and icons of freedom and democracy Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jnr.
His numerous awards are pointers to his avowed goal of repositioning the poor masses of his state to stand against forces of oppression and repression in a poverty ravaged state like Kogi.
As we await the outcome of the ‘comedy of errors’ in which a failed Governor like Yahaya Bello, now apparently seeks a new career as the sacker of legislators, we call on well-meaning Nigerians to condemn the misuse of state power while demanding that Bello concentrates on rescuing his sinking state from the political abyss that wants to consume him and his horde of daily bread hatchet men.
We also call upon INEC to distance itself from this charade as the recall process has been discredited right from day one.
The latest information is that in a bid to demonize Senator Dino Melaye at all cost, the Kogi State Governor had collected fictitious signatures, some of dead or non-existent persons in a bid to achieve a pre-determined end.
If INEC is drawn into this senseless debacle, it will dent the image of INEC to no end. Yahaya Bello is a political leper to be kept at arm’s length by all men of good sense.
Knowing he can never win an election freely and fairly in Kogi State, his antics now remind one of the story of the proverbial chicken which attempts to destroy anything it cannot get.