Nothing exposes the poverty of governance more than the desperate attempt to manufacture achievements where citizens encounter only neglect. The article titled “False Narrative: Governor Has Done Nothing in Kogi East? The Facts Tell a Different Story” is less a defence of Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo’s record than an admission that his administration has resorted to propaganda in place of performance.
A government confident in its accomplishments does not need anonymous publicists, recycled project lists or grand declarations. It simply points to completed projects and allows the people to testify. In Kogi East, however, the loudest witnesses are not government press releases but the roads that remain impassable, the communities still isolated and the citizens who continue to ask a simple question: Where are the completed projects?
The article strings together an impressive catalogue of roads allegedly under construction or rehabilitation. Yet listing projects is not the same as delivering them. Budgetary provisions are not physical infrastructure. Announcements are not asphalt. Government promises are not development. Across Kogi East, many of the roads celebrated in the article remain in deplorable condition, with little or no evidence of meaningful work.
Take the much-publicised Efekpe–Ogolale Road. Residents who use the road daily know its true condition. Those who travel that corridor understand that reality bears little resemblance to the glowing description in the article. If the government insists the road has been rehabilitated, it should publish independent evidence, completion certificates, project timelines and allow Nigerians to inspect the site. Development should not exist only in newspaper columns.
The same pattern runs through the entire defence. Projects are declared. Communities are mentioned. Roads are named. But verifiable outcomes remain elusive. Governance cannot be measured by the number of press statements issued from Lokoja. It is measured by what ordinary people can see, touch and use.
Even more troubling is the attempt to reduce legitimate public dissatisfaction to politics. Citizens questioning the absence of visible development are not “playing politics”; they are performing their democratic duty. Governments are elected to answer questions, not to silence them with carefully crafted narratives.
Kogi East is not asking for special treatment. It is asking for fairness. It is asking that the senatorial district with the largest voting population receives development proportionate to its contribution to the state’s political and economic fortunes. That is not sectionalism; it is justice.
Three years into this administration, the debate should not revolve around whether projects exist on paper. It should centre on measurable improvements in the lives of the people. Where are the flagship infrastructure projects? Which major economic corridors have been transformed? Which strategic investments have fundamentally changed the fortunes of Kogi East? These questions remain unanswered because public relations cannot substitute for public works.
The greatest irony is that this elaborate defence inadvertently confirms the administration’s weakness. A government truly proud of its record would invite scrutiny. Instead, it appears more preoccupied with managing perception than delivering performance.
Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo should resist the temptation to chase shadows through propaganda. Time is running out. The remaining period of his tenure should be devoted to governance rather than public relations exercises designed to convince people that they have seen what they know they have not.
History is rarely kind to administrations that mistake publicity for progress. Roads cannot be paved with headlines. Hospitals cannot be built with rhetoric. Communities cannot be developed through opinion articles.
Ultimately, elections are not won by newspaper essays but by lived experience. The people of Kogi East will judge this administration not by what anonymous writers claim has been done, but by what they encounter every day in their towns, villages and communities. On that score, no amount of spin can permanently obscure the verdict of reality.
Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo has reached his wits end, and no amount of fictitious propaganda can save him from the menacing wrath of the electorates.
Otini Ajaina is the immediate past President of Oma Ataina Descendants Union.
