• Kogi governor balances work and home with unrivalled strength
There is an innate strength in Yahaya Bello that defies notions of valour applicable to his peer. Even though he is just 40, the executive governor of Kogi state grapples with the challenges of his new office and demands of running a home with three ravishing wives.
Very few men of his age and class can handle the onerous tasks of running a state and catering to the needs and desires of a large family. But Yahaya unfurls into the task without a crease in his brow or the oft dreaded fear of exhaustion. Governor Yahaya does not crumble in fear or anticipation of failure because he believes that even the greatest challenges and darkest days were made to sharpen a man’s wit and burnish his shine.
While older men struggle to keep pace with the demands of less tasking jobs and smaller number of wives, Yahaya internalizes strength in his sinewy frame. He epitomises the strength and compassion of the proverbial guardian carrying the fate of the people and land in his heart.
While he worries about feeding clans, communities and villages, nurturing earth guaranteeing security of lives and property in the state, Governor Yahaya also has to contend with the challenges of managing three wives at the homefront. He has to think of sheltering his wards from storms of the future and catering to the needs of his their mothers.
In a nutshell, he has to be a good administrator, astute politician, wonderful father to his kids and agile husband to his wives. Governor Yahaya, according to The Capital findings is up to the task.
He hardly falls short in measure and competence while running his home and office. This indeed is a rare feat in an age when official and marital demands often clash to the detriment of most marriages and homes. Recently he celebrated the birth of twin sons to him by one of his wives, Hajia Amina Bello. The latter delivered the bundles of joy on March 4, 2016 thus attesting to his competence at fulfilling his duties at home despite the demands of the governorship.
Governor Yahaya bears this great weight on his shoulders with admirable compassion and equanimity of spirit. He bears the absolute desolation that comes with challenges of work and home smilingly and with unrivalled vigor.
It is not that he is unmarked or unscarred by the harsh realities and burden of holding forte at home and Kogi’s State House but Yahaya summons absolute strength from a place unfamiliar to even his most dexterous peers.
Governor Yahaya rode to power in the wake of the demise of the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s winning candidate at last year’s governorship elections, Abubakar Audu. The party submitted Yahaya’s name as the party’s new candidate for Kogi governorship supplementary poll.
Bello replaced Audu, who died after leading the poll with 41,000 votes. Until he became governor, Yahaya was widely known as an astute business man and the Managing Director (MD) of FairPlus International Ltd. He was also the MD of the Kogi Youth Arise Forum.
