Impact, not applauds my administration’s focus

… our results speak for themselves

Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello has revealed that his administration has never, not even for one day, worked for applause but for positive impact and always in the overall best interests of the people of Kogi State.

He made this known while delivering his opening speech at the maiden annual GYB media chat/seminar for political and crime correspondents/editors held in Abuja

Gov. Bello noted “I have my eyes on leaving lasting legacies and not necessarily making good impressions on people who are hell-bent on making dents in our accomplishments through dishonesty”

“By its nature legacy cannot be frontloaded, it must always be a verdict delivered by posterity, in retrospect. This means that Legacy is not a medal you award yourself, it is one earned by hard work the results of which extend into the future”

Governor Bello expressed that he has never once underestimated the amount of work that needed to be done considering the abysmal levels of socioeconomic development inherited but being aware that he did not come into government to glorify impossibilities, but to solve problems.

He alluded that the vast majority of security officers were good, intelligent and diligent folk and his government discovered that they just needed the right tools to do their jobs and a little motivation to give their best.

The Governor noted that it took a huge toll on the State’s resources as it purchased and distributed over 200 patrol vans, over 500 motorcycles and thousands of communications and other gadgets to our security contingents in Kogi State within the first year.

He said “In the last 5 years, our results speak for themselves. By 2018, after about 2 years in the office, Kogi went from being a violent crime hub and the kidnap capital of Nigeria to the ‘second most peaceful state in the country’ and ‘the state with the second lowest crime statistics in Nigeria’ according to the rating agencies and law enforcement records”

“The ubiquitous armed robbery and communal clashes we inherited are largely extinct now. We still record kidnapping but only as opportunistic attacks far removed from the franchised operations they used to be in the past when busloads of passengers were routinely abducted for random on our highways. Much respect for our gallant law enforcement contingents in Kogi State who generally subdue such criminality with professional dispatch and extreme prejudice”

He also said that the administration set it focus on the obese and sickly civil service and transformed it adding that the severely bloated workforce and wage bills were put through the eye of the needle.

Governor Bello argued that “The wailing was unprecedented and the attacks mad, but we persevered and pushed through. We are not where we want to be yet, but how gratifying it was to be rated one of only 9 states with positive employment statistics in 2019 by the National Bureau of Statistics. For the last 3 years, the World Bank and other agencies have consistently rated us in the top 3 for transparency and accountability in management of public funds”

The Kogi Governor stated that roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, markets, at least one mega factory and other engineering infrastructure have been built across the state, with more under construction or planned over the next 2 years.

He said that by its positioning as the Confluence State in the nation 80% of all travelers between the North and South go through Kogi State and not many of such travelers know that all the roads they traverse, are federal roads, but they hold us, the Kogi State Government, responsible for the parlous state of disrepair into which all of them have fallen.
“We have tried palliatives of some of them but the Federal Government must arise to her responsibilities in this regard. Anyone who must judge us on the state of infrastructure must go into the hinterlands and see our works. Anything else is prejudicial and unfair to us” he expressed

Governor Bello mentioned that by the end of 2021, his administration would have delivered the Ganaja Flyover to ease traffic reticulation in Lokoja as well the Reference Hospital in Okene and the 3 District hospitals in Gegu, Ajaokuta and Isanlu respectively, the teaching hospital at Idah and others which are slated for completion before the end of his tenure.

He said that In less than one year, the government conceived, constructed and commenced studies at the Confluence University of Science and Technology (CUSTECH), Osara, Kogi State among other bold strides.