DROWNING AUDU IN DESPERATE DITHER FOR LIFEBUOY

By Jude Enesi Salau
writerswithoutwalls@yahoo.ca
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Anebira, actuated by envy, have turned against Abubakar Audu just because he is marching “unstoppably to victory” as governor of Kogi State. So cried some pack of misguided children lately vide advertorials carried in The Nation on Sunday and Daily Trust newspapers of Sunday October 25, 2015, sponsored by a KOGI EAST APC YOUTH FRONT and captioned: “Prince Abubakar Audu’s Candidature and the Ebira Question”.
What comes across from their rather winding patchwork of delusion and outright falsehood couched in bellicose words is that Kogi Central citizens are threatened by Audu’s intimidating credentials by which, contrary to the wishes and scheming of Ebira people, he is cruising to electoral victory in the governorship election billed for November 21, 2015. This is however far from the truth.
Abubakar Audu knows in his heart of hearts that he is an electoral liability to any group that may be accursed enough to ignore wisdom and field him for an elective office. As he faces incumbent governor, Idris Wada, the latter is at ease and squarely on familiar turf with him, but Audu, overwhelmed by a sense of déjà vu, must contrive on alibi for this impending round in his perennial defeats. Perhaps a lowdown will shed some more light on this over bloated Adoja.

From the four winds of the earth the testimonies are conclusive that this Adoja does not belong where he is striving to perch. Nigeria is today striving arduously to chart a new course and the cause of celebrating its heroes and saints; that is hardly an auspicious time for yesterday’s leprous hands to give any thought to staging a come-back, even if Kogi State were in the direst need of just any form of leadership. And we are on Integrity Lane in a new Nigeria, with no admittance for the vile and corrupt.
Abubakar Audu was governor between 1999 and 2003; the legacy he left was one of theft, misuse of public funds and oppression of the people on whose back he rode roughshod to power.

On September 21, 2015, Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Lamorde, wrote a very damning letter to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) drawing the attention of government to the fact that Audu does not qualify to stand election on very serious grounds. One, that his trial is well underway and his conviction, on a balance, likely and that the balance of convenience weighs heavily against his participation in the election as the nation would be met with a fait accompli, unable to move against a convicted criminal because he would then be dangling immunity before the law.
Hear him:
“The candidate was arraigned by the Commission for abuse of office, theft of public funds and money laundering during his tenure as executive governor of Kogi State between 1999 and 2003 at both Kogi High Court Lokoja in 2006 and the Federal Capital Territory High Court, Apo Abuja in 2013.”

Lamorde continued: “The Lokoja case was stalled for six years on account of frivolous interlocutory applications by the accused person [Audu] which has taken us twice to the Supreme Court and eventually decided in the Commission’s favour on 23rd November 2012.” The EFCC boss went on: “The trial effectively continued in 2013 with the filing of fresh charges in Abuja. Eight prosecution witnesses have so far given evidence and 166 exhibits tendered at the proceedings while the case is adjourned till 14th October 2015 for continuation of trial.”

“We are genuinely concerned that the trial will be suspended for another four years if Prince Audu emerges as Kogi State governor, similar to the situation of Governor Fayose of Ekiti State…swearing in another accused person as executive governor in Nigeria may not be in consonance with the current anti-corruption policy of the new administration.”, reasoned the anti-graft expert.

Lamorde preached on: “This may negatively impact our perception by the international community and give rise to skepticism and even cynicism.” The SGF forwarded this EFCC recommendation to APC leadership for implementation. The nation awaits APC’s pleasure on this epic matter.
And this is just one in the array of formidable forces ranged against Audu. Yes, Audu, so loved by all yet eternally hated by the evil Anebira. But the testimonies reel on:
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo had occasions to caution Audu on his rabid acquisitions of foreign properties while governor, after the former president got notifications from the British Home Office, alerting the Nigerian government on the financial-criminal activities of Audu in that country.
Obasanjo wrote to Audu on October 5, 2001. He also wrote to the ICPC and the National Security Adviser, Aliyu Gusau, to investigate and prosecute Audu.

“But as far as I am concerned, they have not established any prima facie case against me in the past 12 years”, remains the standard Audu response to these weighty issues of his criminal enterprise, straining after a gnat having swallowed a whole camel. Our Adoja is talking of a “prima facie” case after his substantive trial commenced and eight witnesses called, with 166 Exhibits tendered? The ignorant fool, with his characteristic arrogant airs, presumes the complicated intricacies of criminal justice administration to be within his pedestal ken.
Earlier, on May 7, 2015 Kogi APC East Elders Forum passed a vote of no-confidence on Audu, citing a plethora of verifiable facts that stood in the way of a free, fair and credible election in Kogi State should Audu be ignored while he schemed his dubious ways to governor again.

Passing the vote of no-confidence on Audu, the elders further resolved in their communiqué to get the leadership of the party at the national level to awaken to the reality of the disaster brewing in Kogi State as a result of the negative Audu factor. Among several other serious indictments, the elders alleged that Audu supervised the extortion of various sums of money “ranging from N2million to N100million” from candidates who won the party’s tickets for various elective positions.
Audu’s high-handedness also came for knocks. The elders recalled an occasion when Audu ordered a man to slap the APC Kogi State woman leader, Hajia Rabi Haruna (Mrs) right in Audu’s house where party members were meeting.

“Prince Abubakar Audu has hijacked the APC party machinery to his personal benefit…issues have created bad blood in the party—a situation that is threatening to tear the party apart. He was indeed solely responsible for the loss of 14 seats in the Kogi State House of Assembly election of 11th April, 2015…the party is heading for imminent collapse if it is left to remain under the leadership of Prince Abubakar Audu.”

They took the unswerving position that “since Audu has declared his intention to contest the forth-coming governorship elections in Kogi State, it is only reasonable that he should cease to be the leader of the party in the interest of fairness, equity and justice.”, arriving at the inevitable: “Henceforth, therefore, the Elders of the Kogi East of the APC will not recognize him as the leader of the party in the state.”
Adoja however wants to be rewarded with the exulted office of governor for causing the APC to lose fourteen seats in the state assembly election!

The communiqué was signed by nearly thirty of the elders that trooped out to demystify Adoja, including: Senator Alex Kadiri, Chief John Odawn, Alhaji Abul Kaka, Hon. Ihiabe Positive, James Ocholi (SAN), Dr. Tom Miachi, Ojogbane Patrick, Dr. Mike Attah, Hon. Ugbaje Friday, Hon. Amina T. Musa, S.I. Ocheja, Idris Ejima Aruwa, Alhaji Ibrahim Isah, Hajia Rekiya Molood, Abubakar Awobi Umar, Shaihima Atan, Sheidu Odomo, Comrade Okeme Moses Alfa. Also signing the communiqué were: Steve Shaibu, Isaac Ekpa Eso, Sule Adama, Eleojo S. Aba, Alhaji Suleiman Yakubu, Vincent Baba Ankpa and Umoru Oscar.
In these circumstances of all-round rejection by all and sundry, Audu jumped into the fray for governor because has been blind and deaf to these loud and clear writings on the wall that Kogi would never again stand for another yes of Audu holocaust.

Audu, it should ordinarily interest us, was governor in the same dispensation with the ilk of APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, APC National Leader, Asiwaju Tinubu, Chief Bisi Akande, Chief Segun Osoba and a host of others as governors in their respective states. These respectable, decent, intelligent and meek true leaders have since progressed to become even elder statesmen. But our own Adoja is content to remain the village bully, in the ring against his grandchildren. Where ever went honour, Adoja?

In all of these, Anebira are to blame! The clean are bold as the lion, but the guilty are afraid even when none pursues.
The Ebira and Igala have a common ancestry and historical affinity. Kogi State came on stream as direct first fruits for the labours of our elders such as Alhaji Ahmadu Ali, Chief Obasaju, Alhaji Adamu Atta, Alhaji Ado Ibrahim, and Tunde Ogbeha, among many other elders of the new state.
Upon creation, it was agreed that the Ebira, having been opportune to serve as governor in old Kwara State, should voluntarily concede the number one slot to their persecuted brothers from then Benue State, the Igala, and that thereafter the Okun and the Ebira would take their turns for governor.
A little digression would perhaps not be out of the way here.

Nuhu Audu, an Igala man, was just a manager at Ajaokuta Steel Company when he was catapulted to the position of Deputy-General Manager by the late Dr. Idris Atta, who was Managing Director and acted on the belief that, since the Igala are brothers and sisters to the Ebira, they should be assisted to positions of prominence in the steel industry.
Sometime thereafter, Nuhu was invited by Ebira elders who broached to him the issue of governorship of the new state in the offing, and pledged to support him for governor the new state. While declining the offer, Nuhu brought in his stead Abubakar Audu for the position.

Audu was now pitted against his own kinsman Dr. Achema. At this time, no Ebira or Okun or any other tribe for that matter fielded any candidate for this office because it had already been agreed that power would rotate from the Igala to the other ethnic groupings in the state after the expiry of the term zoned to them.

But directly Audu achieved power, he began, like a raging bull in a china shop, to dismantle the entire structures and understanding upon which he rode to office. Audu began a system of instigating tribal crises by playing the Igala card against the Okun and then the Ebira.
Audu created illegal local council areas with over half of them in the East while giving less than half to the Okun and the Ebira combined. Audu embarked on a savage policy of victimization of the Okun and the Ebira. Audu began a mass purge of the civil service of people of Okun and Ebira origin only to promptly replace them with people from the East senatorial district.
After Abacha’s military regime, politicking picked up. Audu was pitted against Olorunfemi, but with the support of A.T. Ahmed from the Central district, Audu was victorious.

In his electioneering campaigns, Audu promised to establish Kogi State University in Okunland.  However, upon election, Audu reneged on his promise, sponsoring a bill in the state assembly for a law setting up the institution but without disclosing the proposed university’s site. After the bill sailed through, Audu then unilaterally sited it at Ayingba and named the university after himself. That is the ‘emperor’ you sure would not love meet!

Audu went on to autocratically levy the local governments to pay 5 percent of their allocations for the running of the state university on the understanding again that it would be decentralized as satellite campuses would be built in the other two senatorial districts—West and Central.
By this arrangement, the faculty of Metallurgical Engineering was billed for the Central while a College of Medicine attached with a teaching hospital was reserved for the West.

In demonstration of the greed that he is universally known for, Audu, as we just saw, named it “Abubakar Audu University”, after bamboozling the state House of Assembly members into believing the tertiary institution would be built in the West senatorial district (Kabba) and to the glory of the entire state.
Protests greeted this treachery. Audu then promised to decentralize the university but never did. How then would any rational Okun man or woman need Anebira to remind them who Audu truly is?

The demographic controversies that have been the lot of Kogi State since creation began in the time of Audu as governor when he claimed that the East was greater in population than the West and the Central combined.

In took the involvement of population experts from the advanced world whose aerial pictures of the East, West and Central districts, showed clearly that there were more settlements and buildings in either the West or the Central than in the East where the buildings were sparse, scattered all over, and in pockets dotting the forests. It came to light that the National Population Commission had been overly generous to the East in the figures it had released before the outcry necessitating this practical demonstration of the falsity of those original figures.
The NPC findings are very significant for one thing: Audu had based his attempt at illegally creating new local governments on the basis of the outdated 1963 census, and the old political divisions in the state which had already been overtaken by developments such as the establishment of the Ajaokuta Steel Company, with the attendant population growth in the steel project’s environs.
The Iron-Ore Mining Company at Itakpe brought another population explosion to the area. What is more, the founding of the Federal College of Education at Okene saw a huge growth in population from what it was in 1963.

Again, after Okene became a nodal town with the construction of link roads between the northern and the southern parts of the country, the South-South, South-West and South-East northward movements and most traffic from Lagos to Abuja of necessity course through Okene town. Same is true of traffic from Warri, Port-Harcourt, Benin-City, Owerri, Onitsha , Agbor and many other destinations across Nigeria.
Added to the foregoing, the change in the status of Lokoja from a riverside fishing village to that of a state capital led to the growth of satellite settlements around the city. Most of these satellite villages fall within Adavi-Okene (Kogi Central). Besides, the Okene-Abuja Road is almost fully settled from Okene through Lokoja.
Audu’s lopsided creation of local governments provoked protests among the Okun and the Ebira. This led to wanton destruction in Ebiraland, which these misguided youths alluded to in their attempted distortion of history and truth.

Audu continued in his destructive mission, assisted by his kleptomaniac tendencies, by removing medical equipment from the specialist hospital attached to the School of Nursing at Obangede in Okehi local government. Medical equipment were similarly stolen from Egbe Hospital in the West. Audu impoverished the entire state to his personal benefit to the point that workers’ salaries were often not paid at all, his excuse being that the money was being applied to run the illegal local governments he created.
Traditional institutions were never safe from Audu’s frequent and savage assaults. The Eje of Ankpa got a good dose of the ‘emperor treatment’ when he was unceremoniously removed while the Olujumu of Ijumu was placed under house arrest. A similar fate befell a traditional chief in Bassaland.
It is important to clarify here that the ordinary citizens from the East, West or Central have absolutely nothing against each other. However, the leadership from the  East that have been lording it over the rest these past sad years aided by commission agents and the people’s traitors have succeeded to the extent that they were enabled by the acquiescence of the oppressed who have been too willing to submit to enslavement by these power-thirsty crude lot.

The saving grace for Kogi people however is this: silver linings have emerged on the horizon, portending a new day with a New Direction. The people have realized that these profligates have been misleading to the detriment of their own people in the East. The roads in the East are described by Senator Alex Kadiri as “death traps”. It is so terrible that Okun people are compelled to journey through Okene to be able to access other parts of Okunland from their Kabba hub.
Other states created alongside Kogi and even those created thereafter have so outpaced our state that one begins to wonder if the so-called leaders in Kogi are sane at all.
The masses are suffering. Local governments are underfunded and starved of development under the joint allocation formula. They are enriching themselves at the expense of the masses on whose mandate they got to their positions.

The internally generated revenue of the state is such that the West and Central jointly account for over eighty percent but receive less than twenty percent in the allocation of resources.

This, in a nutshell, is how we arrived where we find ourselves in Kogi State today. But those willing war while wishing peace would have us believe that it is Anebira that constitute the stumbling block to Audu’s tall dream of re-occupying a Lugard House he once defiled when as governor he pillaged state treasury to the tune of N11billion.

Audu’s domestic records as a father, husband and family head are nil. Uncontrollable rage seizes him with such frequency that his children, wives and colleagues as well as neighbours must always tremble and scamper for safety from him.

THE WILL, an online news outlet, reported that Audu assaulted his wife and mother of three in the United States, culminating in a court order barring Audu from ever contacting his estranged wife, Aisha Audu, “either by phone, writing, in person or any other means”. Much of what actually transpired is too disgusting in print for social hygiene.
Audu allegedly left only N500,000.00 (five hundred thousand) Naira in state coffers while leaving as governor  but was able to “purchase in cash a two-storey mansion in his name from Par Development, LC in the United States for $1,719,944 on March 15, 2001“. He then sold this mansion for $1 to himself through a phony company called Bellside Properties, LL.C registered to himself and his first son, Aliyu.

From the East senatorial district is another of the many voices of reason that have been sounding the bugle to a deaf Audu: “how can a person be the leader of a party in the state and still be an aspirant? Secondly, this man has been governor on two different occasions and ALL the problems we have been talking about [in the state] can be attributed to him in person.“ bemoaned Senator Alex Kadiri, who then concluded: “we should treat him with a long pole”, because the former university don could not understand why “as a member of the Board of Trustees you come down from there and contest for a place in your state?”
For the Ebira traducers however, the only  obstacles in the way of Audu “galloping to victory” are the Ebira people of Central senatorial district who, they allege, have been scheming to reverse an unstoppable train having ”failed to put their own house in order”.  But hear what news from Okunland has for Audu’s throne of bayonets.

Writing in Kogi Reports of September 10, 2015, Titi Balogun sized up Adoja and gave a verdict: “Audu has mortal enemies across the 21 local governments in Kogi State who will do everything they can to stop him from returning to Lugard House.“ Continuing, she maintained that ”it is an open secret that Audu’s candidature cannot guarantee electoral victory.” and concluded that “as a result, many party failthfuls were expecting [Audu] to pick a strong politician from Kogi Central or West…The selection of Faleke is largely seen as a BIG error by the party.”
“First, Faleke is an unknown entity in Kogi politics …. Faleke himself is aware….Faleke’s choice is faulty even within Okun political space. Faleke is from Ijumu…. as Senator Dino Melaye…. Faleke’s choice has left Yagbaland out of equation! The choice of Faleke is a slap on the faces of committed and loyal party men and women in the state….. Of a truth, the labours of Kogi APC heroes have been in vain.” This is the thorough and painstaking analysis this writer, herself an indigene of Okunland and therefore in no need of schooling on Okun politics, has for Adoja’s ineffectual ethnic card, wherein his fiendish attempt to drive the Okun and the Ebira close again failed woefully.

The APC Appeal Committee, which heard the petition against Audu and against which Audu’s amateur image launderers have cast vile aspersions, came to this conclusion: “On the whole the committee finds it shocking that the Kogi State Governorship Screening Committee successfully screened the respondent [Audu] and gave him a clean bill of health to contest the primary election of the party…the respondent ought to have been prevented from voting as a statutory delegate…at the primary election.”
Writing in Kogi Reports of September 20, 2015, Mike Abu, a senior media aide to the Deputy-Governor, Yomi Awoniyi, said: “The Kogi election would be decided by Kogi people and not Tinubu who has nominated a deputy who is unknown to Kogi people for Prince Audu, all because he wants to position the man [Faleke] for governor in 2019 and for his [Tinubu’s] presidential ambition.” Every informed person in Kogi State knows Audu for an extremely hard sell. For such a one to launch into subterfuge to conceal his yawning disabilities makes Audu an Alibaba come into his own.

These Adoja children striving to lay Audu’s imminent and inevitable crash in the election at the doorsteps of Anebira, complained that their zonal rally for Adoja recorded “the scantiest since the campaign flag off” and that “in virtually all the seven elections so far contested by Adoja, including the two he had won, except for the good people of Adavi local government area, Ebira have always voted against him. However when it comes to local elections like the state Assembly or National Assembly polls, the same set of voters are known to do a U-turn and elect their own people on the same platform that they have rejected Adoja.” By their own testimony, their tin god has always been rejected; why all the fury now? Because a drowning will catch at straws just to stay afloat.

Okun people know Audu for the pathological liar he is. They do not need Anebira to poison their minds against Audu. They can vividly recall how they were fooled into believing that Audu would site the College of Medicine of the Kogi State University in Okunland, only turn round and begin construction of it in the East—Ayingba. Okun people remember how Audu stole equipment from their hospital at Egbe and took them to his village, Ogbonicha.
Ogori-Magongp is a one-village local government sandwiched between the predominant Ebira tribe. No incident of any inter-communal strife has ever occurred between the Ebira and the settlers. Ajaokuta is Central senatorial district but its traditional ruler an Onu from among the Igala in the East. Local government chairmen, councilors and even State House of Assembly members have always come from among the Igala who are now attempting to claim majority in another tribe’s heartland, which Ajaokuta represents.
In their master’s characteristic delusion of grandeur, the Adoja campaigners of calumny and defamation are already threatening to sideline their perceived opponents (Ebira) when they eventually achieve the reins of power. But wisdom would have advised the self-proclaimed prince to try mending fences with the broad spectrum of the Kogi public he has injured beyond pardon instead of this shadow-boxing.

The elders of APC Kogi East where Audu hails from have nothing complimentary to say about the evil prince. The intellectuals from this place all keep a safe distance of him because of his coarse manners and savage conduct. A leader who can order an elected party official to be slapped is anything but civilized. And a governor who can actually raise his hand and slap his elected deputy is a beast that belongs in the animal kingdom.
The choice for Kogians is therefore clear; Audu must look elsewhere for his imminent eclipse when his weird dream for a return to Lugard House will be buried. His undoing consists in his character, his traits, his itchy fingers, his lack of respect for order and civilized behaviour, his undue reliance on cash as qualification for public office. And his penchant for knocking tribal heads together while he fills his pocket to the brim.

Audu ought to know that the downtrodden people of Kogi State, particularly Kogi Central, know their true friends and can distinguish between a ravening wolf and a meek and intelligent leader. Running from one’s shadow won’t help, Adoja. The leopard cannot change its spots. Kogi has a choice between the filthy lucre of the whitewashed sepulcher fed to those misguided youths and the timely wise warnings of the Kogi APC East Elders Forum.