Opinion
KOGI STATE, THE BIRTHPLACE OF NIGERIA AND ITS POLITICS: SOME SALIENT LESSONS
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For those who may not be quite familiar with Kogi state, here is a refresher. The state was created in 1991, comprising twenty-one (21) local governments and Lokoja as its capital city.
The name Kogi means river in Hausa language after the two iconic rivers Niger and Benue that traversed the state and indeed Northern Nigeria. Kogi State is strategically sandwiched between the Southern and Northern parts of the country. It shares boundaries with about seven states namely; Ekiti, Kwara, Edo, Anambra, Enugu, Benue, Nasarawa and the FCT. Its mantra is the Confluence State which metaphorically allude to the meeting point of both geographical and cultural (Northern and Southern) divides. Kogi could thus be likened to a melting point or microcosm of Nigeria.
A tapestry of diversity in terms of culture, tradition and faith, giving it a quilt like outlook.
Lokoja, the state capital was where the history and evolution of modern Nigeria started. It was the site a British explorer named William Balfour Baikie established as an “expedition camp” in 1857 as he explored the river. Years later the Royal Niger Company (1879-1900), found it attractive in facilitating trading along the rivers.
It eventually became the administrative base/ capital of the British Northern Protectorate as proclaimed by Lord F. Lugard on 1st January, 1900. In 1914 the Southern and Northern Protectorates were amalgamated into one political entity called Nigeria. A name coined by Flora Shaw the wife of Lugard, in 1902 after the River Niger that incidentally connects the hitherto independent Regions that eventually made up today’s Nigeria.
Missionary activities soon followed in Lokoja area, with the first school in the North established in 1866 under Bishop A. Crowther. The Protectorate’s headquarter gave way to Zungeru (Niger State) and Kaduna (Kaduna State) as successive capitals. While Kaduna served as political capital the town of Wusasa-Zaria became the center of evangelical activities with the second missionary school in the North established in 1926.
Missionary activities in the Lokoja area exposed the then major inhabitants namely; the Igala, Egbira, Kakanda, Oworo-Okuns, Nupe and Hausa etc to early western education, which produced great scholars, technocrats, professionals, clerics, military officers and entrepreneurs.
“Mayoralty” (Mai Gari, Magajin Gari) as a leadership form/model, was also first introduced in Lokoja, when the Colonial Administration appointed a person of Hausa extraction as the mayor (Mai Gari) of Lokoja.
The Maigari position was not a hereditary one, as such individuals from diverse ethnic backgrounds such as the Hausa, Nupe, Kanuri etc have occupied it. One of the famous Mai Gari being Mal. Bukar from the Borno region.
On the not so positive side, Lokoja has the unenviable record of housing a pantheon of more than seven deposed Northern emirs/chiefs; royal fathers who lost the favours of the Colonial Administration. They include Alu Maisango (Kano), Aliyu Dan Sidi (Zazzau), Muhammadu Aliyu (Gwandu), and Abubakar Dan Abubakar (Gumel). The great Worrior Queen Amina of Zazzau has her resting place arguably at Ida still in the Kogi area after a failed military expedition.
The testament of Lokoja and, indeed, the Kogi confluence region’s rich history, was the production of top class and highly patriotic citizens who served both the defunct Northern Region and the nation meritoriously In no particular order, they include Chief Awoniyi, who was Sardauna’s Private Secretary. Abdulrahman Okene a Cabinet Minister, Isa Koto, Oheiri, Achimugu, Adukwu G, Aliyu Ogbaje, Ado Ibrahim, Sani Omolori, Sunday Danian, Ahmadu Ali, Stephen Achema, Abdullahi Ibrahim, Salihu Ibrahim, Jibrin Usman, Ibrahim Ogohi, Ben Ekele, A.T.Ahmed, Abubakar Audu, Idacheba, Okpanachi S. etc. The successor Wusasa added notable men like Gen.Gowon, R.B. Dikko, I.Audu and the Beikies and Millers in tow.
It is this curious pedigree that makes Kogi State and its politics of great interest to the average Northerner and indeed Nigerian. Unfortunately in contemporary terms Kogi punches below its weight. Outside the era of late Governor Abubakar Audu, (1992-1993) and (1999-2003), Kogi State’s developmental strides left much to be desired, especially given its huge human and natural resource endowments.
Late Abubakar pioneered or was among the pioneers that started the establishment of state-owned Universities in the North. He established the Kogi State University, Ayingba.He later established a State Polytechnic and built the 5-star Confluence Hotel. Other developments included 1,500 housing units, TV and FM stations, among others. These feats have become too challenging to replicate or built upon by successive governors like Idris (2008-2012), Ichala Wada (2012-206), and Yahaya Bello Adoza (2016-2025).
The trio of Audu, Idris, and Wada are of Igala extraction indicative of the ethnic group’s dominance in the state.
Democracy they say, is a game of numbers or rather a tyranny of numbers. In Kogi, like anywhere else in Africa, the numbers are embedded with ethnic and religious enclaves. The Igala commanding over 58% of Kogi population is dominant in 9 out of the 21 local councils followed by Igbira (Tao and Koto) 5 and Okun 4, the remaining three shared with other ethinities in varying proportion.
The two major faiths Islam and Christianity are almost split in the middle with the balance in favour of the Muslim group. The Igala inherently called the political shots in the state until Providence truncated the chain when Abubakar, the presumed winner of the 2016 elections, returned to his Creator. Political power thus shifted to the Igbira through Yahaya Bello Adoza. Divine hands, one would say.It however became a rough ride for him as the ghosts of competing ethno-religious interests and poor handling of same kept haunting the Administration throughout.
One would ordinarily expect that after a checkered two four-year tenure Yahaya would have taken a well-deserved rest and made peace with his aggrieved constituents. But no, he allegedly wangled the last election (the case in Court) to pave the way for his protege, a tribe’s man in the person of Ahmed Usman Ododo.
The Igala and Okun were livid as they knew the voting pattern and/or strength in the State, like many others, could not warrant the victory. Politics in Nigeria is an ethno-religious phenomenon as a matter of fact. So it was believed that there was no way the Igbira vote could have elected Ododo governor. It was felt that barefaced manipulation using incumbency power by Bello did it.
The consequent post-election dust is yet to settle, setting the stage for political instability and concomitant stagnation. Matters become even more curious if some of the new Governor’s alleged utterances are taken into account, such as the contemplated creation of the “Office of Immediate Past Governor” to be domiciled in the Governor’s Office as well as the open declaration that former Governor Bello shall have the final say in the governance of the state. This is disingenuous and smacks of power intoxication. Governor Ododo and former governor Yahaya should do well to realise that power is transient. And the people’s power which lies in numbers shall eventually prevail no matter what. So the brazen attempt to appropriate power through alleged “electoral ambush” and manipulation in Kogi needs to be re-assessed.
Bello and Ododo should tow the path of political collaboration over cutthroat competition to save the state from socioeconomic retardation. In environments where political weightings vary, only concensus building and enlightenment could facilitate sustainable shifts, particularly from majority to minority groups.
To perpetually keep power against the will of the majority is one of the hardest political endeavours. Contemporary history is clear on that.The minority white Boer regime in South Africa could not hold the Black majority at bay beyond a certain point, despite its enormous economic and state prowess. The French could not keep down Algeria by force. America had to flee Afghanistan after about two decades of military operation to beat the majority Afgans into the liberal political line. And many more examples around the globe abound. In politics numbers don’t respect sentiments especially under nascent and wobbly democratic dispensations as found in Nigeria and indeed most of the less developed countries (LDCs) of the world.
Bello shall be saluted for the love of his people but this love should not be to the detriment of the state. Yahaya Bello’s sentiments/posture could be less problematic if he were to belong to the majority ethnic Kanuri in Borno or Tiv group in Benue state. The two groups (Tiv and Kanuri) command two senatorial districts out of three in their states and as such can “comfortably” shut out the third zone from the executive political space. The Idoma and the Babur experiences in the two states attest to this. By extension even the Zuru in Kebbi, Egong in Nasarawa, Fulani in Taraba face similar challenges . Challenges of marginalisation born out of poor voter-education and enlightenment largely prevails. The ability to choose freely is still highly encumbered by ethinity and religion. The government should make massive political education a greater constitutional issue to save democracy.
Providence may have smiled at Yahaya Bello’s Igbira group but it would require tact to sustain it.The “grah-grah” strategy will only hurt the state more. He would do well to save Kogi the needless political suffocation and economic stagnation that come with a “garrison ” or “do or die” politics.
Be that as it may, it behoves the Igala, the Tiv, the Kanuri of Kogi, Benue and Borno respectively to cultivate the political habit of being their brothers keeper. As minorities too, in national context, they should engage with the smaller groups in their enclaves with a view to working out some form of political equity including access to the governorship seat.This shall create greater sense of belonging and also reduce unnecessary acrimony.
It’s a win- win move that strengthen patriotism and also engender rapid development of the polity.
A. G. Abubakar
agbarewa@gmail.com
Opinion
OF GOVERNANCE AND THE ZULUMFICATION OF GOVERNANCE IN BORNO: RANDOM MUSSINGS ON GOV. ZULUM’S 3RD YEAR 2ND STANZA.
By: Inuwa Bwala. inuwabwala3@gmail.com
By the time I put down my pen, the media space would have been awash with narratives about the achievements of Mr President and governors, as a mark of celeberation of their third year in office.
I will not bother chronicling what will be told of their achievements, rather I want to look into the curious magic wand that made my own governor to stand differently tall.
One will not find the definition of title coinage for this piece in any conventional English lexicon, but no Nigerian will claim ignorance of what it signifies in our present governance discourse.
Many words have today been personified after certain people, who popularize an idiosyncritic mannerism.
And so, in Borno’s 15-year war against insurgency, Governor Babagana Umara Zulum seem to have chosen an unconventional playbook: governance style, reminisceint of an emergency doctor, not a distant administrator, which led to above coinage.
Three idiosyncrasies define his second term in particular, and the gains are showing on the ground to the effect that, these idiosyncracies gave rise to the coinage: Zulumfication.
Zulum’s trademark has been his unannounced visits; 2am checks on General Hospitals, surprise trips to IDP camps in Monguno, Baga, Damboa and others. Sudden stops on bad roads in Gwoza and unsheduled night overs in dangerous localities, as his routine.
He inspects projects with torchlight and asks hard questions: sometimes sacking absentee staff on the spot.
And the gains have added speed and discipline to government Contracts and civil servants.
They promptly deliver, knowing Zulum could appear any day any time.
This obviously explains how, 238 projects got completed in year one of his second term and 1,195 projects in five years. That urgency earned Governor Babagana Umara Zulum the Nigeria Union of Journalist’s Good Governance Award on Education in 2023.
And while Borno spent about N100bn on security in 2025, Zulum kept prioritizing people, with N727m going to 28,801 tertiary students. N1.5bn covered nursing students’ fees, besides the cash support reacheming 343,293 women.
His logic, has been that, “Education is the real antidote for insurgency. The payoff is human recovery.
Records indicate that, over 1,000 teachers were recruited, 150+ schools rebuilt, and the 104 Mega School Initiative launched. And so, when President Tinubu commissioned three mega schools in Maiduguri in 2026, he called them “tangible evidence of effective governance.” Kids who once hawked on Maiduguri streets are back in class because opportunity replaced despair.
Again, Zulum is known to have zero tolerance for waste. He has queried commissioners live on TV, sacked ghost workers, and confronted contractors who abandoned sites. It nay be uncomfortable in politics, but it works. Borno scored 89.7/100 on the 2025 Governance Accountability & Transparency Index, up from 86.3 in 2024, ranking among Nigeria’s top 10. Ministries now expect scrutiny, and leakages have shrunk.
Zulum blends this with reconstruction plus reconciliation. While 20,000+ resettlement homes house over 1 million returned IDPs, his “Borno Model” has convinced 200,000+ fighters and families to surrender and got reintegrated. Markets in Bama, Dikwa and Gwoza are reopening. Roads are being rebuilt, though insecurity still stalls some projects in southern Borno.
He remains low-profiled but with very high-output, avoiding political noise and letting the work speak. The Muslim News Nigeria honored him with its 2025 Transformational Leadership Award for “courage, accountability, compassion.”
Perfection is not claimed. Pockets of violence persist, and security costs strain finances, but Zulum’s style proves a point
In a crisis situation, presence builds trust, empathy rebuilds people, and accountability restores institutions. Borno is moving from “state of emergency” to “state of reconstruction” — one unannounced visit produces uncommon results.
Thiese in my opinion are amingst the exceptional things governor Babagana Umara has done, which have given rise to his national acclaim as an outstanding performer.
Opinion
Aondoakaa, a Leader Who Opens Doors: My Personal Story of Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa, SAN
By Iorwuese Tyopev, PhD
Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa, SAN, is, in my experience, a transformational leader, and I can personally testify to this from years of direct engagement with him.
Although I initially knew him only casually as an elder brother from Ushongo, our relationship deepened when I approached him to patronise the business I managed as a hotel manager in Abuja. From that point, Siman Suites in Garki became his preferred accommodation whenever he was in the Federal Capital Territory.
Each time he was travelling to Abuja, his usual call would come: “Tyopev, my brother, please keep a room for me, I’m on my way.”
A defining moment in 2006
One of the most memorable moments in our relationship came in 2006 when he was conferred with the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). For his swearing-in ceremony at the Supreme Court, he booked almost the entire hotel for family, friends, and well-wishers who travelled from far and near to celebrate with him.
Beyond the business value, his consistent patronage strengthened my professional standing at the time and positively influenced my performance evaluation at work.
Continued relationship in public service
Our relationship continued after his appointment as Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice in July 2007 under the administration of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
Coincidentally, around the same period, my late boss, Senator J.I. Akaagerger, was elected into office and invited me to serve as his Senior Legislative Aide at the National Assembly. Chief Aondoakaa also expressed interest in bringing me into the Ministry of Justice as an aide. Although I chose to remain with my principal at the National Assembly, he respected my decision and maintained a cordial, brotherly relationship with me.
Prison decongestion intervention
Shortly after assuming office as Minister, he launched a prison decongestion initiative. In September 2007, I submitted an application requesting allocation of prison decongestion cases. He immediately asked whether I had legal representation, and upon confirmation, he promptly assigned several cases to me.
That support continued throughout his tenure until 2010.
Career support and mentorship
By mid-2008, I expressed dissatisfaction with my role at the National Assembly. He advised patience and assured me of better opportunities.
True to his word, in January 2009, he informed me of an opportunity with Dr Paul Orhii, then Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), who agreed to engage me as Special Assistant.
Although I resumed duty, I was later informed—within 30 days—that my services were no longer required due to a change in preference. Chief Aondoakaa was abroad at the time, but upon his return, he reassured me, saying: “Don’t worry, another opportunity will come.”
New opportunity at NAPTIP
Shortly after, I was invited to his residence in Apo, where I met Barr. Simon Chuzi Egede, MON, who had just been appointed Executive Secretary of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).
There, I was informed that I would serve as Special Assistant to the new Executive Secretary.
In a remarkable turn of events, I received my appointment letter the next day as Special Assistant at Grade Level 16 Step 5, along with an official vehicle and chauffeur. I was also integrated into top management committees and exposed to both national and international engagements.
End of an era and lasting gratitude
Following the death of President Yar’Adua in 2010 and subsequent political changes, Chief Aondoakaa left office as Minister, which also affected my position at NAPTIP due to its political nature.
Looking back, I remain deeply grateful to Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa, SAN, for his loyalty, mentorship, and willingness to uplift others.
Some leaders inspire with words; others transform lives through action. Chief Aondoakaa, in my experience, belongs firmly to the latter category.
NB: This is Part 1 of a series of reflections on my personal experience with MKA, highlighting his mentorship and support to those around him, shared in anticipation of his birthday on June 12.
The Odua People’s Assembly (OPA) has come out in defense of National Security Adviser (NSA) Nuhu Ribadu, condemning recent remarks by retired Nigerian Army General Ishola Williams calling for Ribadu’s removal.
In a statement issued by OPA Chairman Richard Olatunji Kayode, the group described Williams’ comments, made during a Channels Television interview on March 15, 2026, as “irresponsible and counterproductive,” arguing that they lacked factual basis and risked undermining efforts to address Nigeria’s security challenges.
“His assertions lack factual support and are driven more by emotional manipulation than by evidence-based reasoning,” Kayode said. “Such rhetoric contributes to a culture of ‘permanent pessimism’ that undermines the morale of our security forces and the integrity of our national institutions.”
Kayode emphasized that irresponsible criticism, unlike constructive feedback, damages reputations, fosters mistrust, and distracts from meaningful solutions.
He urged that public discourse focus on actionable measures rather than unsubstantiated accusations.
The OPA highlighted Ribadu’s proactive initiatives, including the National Forest Guard programme, as well as his record as former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), where he gained recognition for anti-corruption efforts.
“Under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Ribadu has been recognized for his effectiveness in combating banditry and terrorism. His ability to coordinate security forces and solve criminal cases demonstrates his competence and dedication to public safety,” Kayode said.
The group called on influential Nigerians to engage in responsible and constructive dialogue on national security issues, urging Williams to reconsider his position and contribute to solutions rather than criticism.
“Our collective responsibility is to foster an environment of trust, collaboration, and constructive criticism, ensuring that our security forces are equipped and supported to protect our great nation,” Kayode concluded.
OF GOVERNANCE AND THE ZULUMFICATION OF GOVERNANCE IN BORNO: RANDOM MUSSINGS ON GOV. ZULUM’S 3RD YEAR 2ND STANZA.
HON. JA’AFARU YAKUBU HONOURED WITH DOUBLE TRADITIONAL TITLES OF CHIROMAN GASSOL AND MARAFAN BAKUNDI BALI
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