Gov. Yahaya Bello’s Interview with Channels TV

When Covid-19 which is a glorified malaria was imported into the country, I advised, cautioned and I warned that accepting the imported alien disease will have huge consequences on the long run, but they never listened to the little voice from us. The current protest is one of the consequences of the lockdown during the Covid-19 era.
✓ Now, we have the military, the civil defence, the Navy… and because there are bad eggs amongst them, should we scrap them off completely?
✓ Why will you supply us with trailer loads of foodstuffs which we can locally-produce here, and then we are told to wait for several months for a flag off ceremony.
We produce Confluence Rice here in Kogi.
✓ EndSARS protests which started as a genuine agitation has now been hijacked by hoodlums and is taking a political dimension
✓All these could have been avoided if you treated covid-19 with the same sincerity as ebola
✓ Even though we had no covid-19 in Kogi state, our state was economically affected. So we had to get the support of the Federal Government.
✓ We are building three general hospitals across Kogi state worth billions of naira
✓ We distributed palliatives to 20 out of 21 local governments in Kogi State.
The palliative distribution for lokoja local government was on until imported hoodlums tried to interfere
✓ We as a state have been distributing palliatives to our people long before this Covid era. Our state is prone to flood, so palliative distribution from us is a normal thing
✓ Poverty in Nigeria is a result of the maladministration of former governments.
From Federal levels, to state and local levels, we are doing our best to reduce poverty rate.
✓ Looting is not a result of poverty. Looting was also experienced even in wealthy countries like the United States of America during the Black lives matter protest, so Looting is not completely a product of poverty.
✓ Let us not set ourselves against each other. We must organise ourselves and speak well about our country.
✓ I said it when covid-19 came into the country that few people are going to profit from this.
✓When you begin to shift your goal from 5 for 5, and your needs become endless, it is obvious that your agenda has become politically motivated
✓ It is unfortunate lives were lost during the agitation, I sympathize with all those who lost their lives
✓In Kogi state, we are proactive.
We discovered there are various reports of Human Rights violations, we then set up the Public Defenders and Civil Rights Defenders bill and passed it into law in 2019