Hypocritical Hypertension of His Excellency
If irony were a disease, former Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State would be in the intensive care unit right now, preferably one of the ultra-modern hospitals he supposedly built in Kogi to combat medical tourism
By Jide Akamha
If irony were a disease, former Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State would be in the intensive care unit right now, preferably one of the ultra-modern hospitals he supposedly built in Kogi to combat medical tourism. But alas, the man now finds himself too hypertensive, too calcium-filled, and too frightened of Nigerian hospitals—those same hospitals he once paraded as 21st-century marvels—to stay back in the country he governed for eight years. “Let me treat my hypertension abroad,” he pleads. The EFCC, arms folded and brow raised, responds, “Treat it where? In your own miracle hospitals, of course.”
There is something tragically comic about Yahaya Bello’s current health-induced jet-setting ambitions. Here is a man who, during his tenure, rolled out red carpets for hospital ribbon-cuttings, posed in white coats beside machines his aides didn’t know how to pronounce, and regaled the press with tales of turning Kogi into a global medical destination. Yet, the moment his blood pressure ticked above 120/80, he made a mad dash, not to the Kogi Specialist Hospital in Okene, but to the tarmac of Abuja Airport, visa in hand, praying to be whisked away to the land of the white coats and white lies.
It is true that high blood pressure and hypercalcemia are legitimate medical conditions. But so is hypocrisy. The EFCC, ever the unamused headmaster in Nigeria’s great political boarding school, reminded Bello that those state-of-the-art hospitals he claimed to have built were designed, as per his own gospel, to stop elite class member like himself from flying abroad to treat ailments as basic as a stubborn sneeze. Now he must eat the fruits of his fibs. The anti-graft agency even upped the ante by invoking Hushpuppi, a name that sends shivers down the spines of luxury-loving fugitives the world over. Bello, it seems, is one Emirates flight away from a one-way ticket to Uncle Sam’s courtroom.
But what is even more astonishing is the sense of entitlement. Yahaya Bello is not just fleeing his ailments; he is s attempting to flee the law. It is as if Nigerian leaders suffer a unique strain of hypertension: _selective civic stress syndrome_ , one that only flares up in the face of accountability. The same Bello who ducked EFCC operatives, who played hide-and-seek with the law like a contestant on Big Brother Naija, now wants sympathy and a travel pass. His lawyers forgot to mention the name of the doctor on the medical report. Was it Dr. Do-Little, Dr. Damage or Dr. Disappear?
More farcical still is the legal gymnastics. Bello is running parallel applications in different courts, like a man who applies for visas to multiple countries, hoping one lets him in. Even those who stood surety for him, those brave or blind enough to vouch for a man on Interpol’s red list, were not informed of his travel lust. If this isn't courtroom catwalking, what is?
Yet, beyond the comedic gold, this case underscores a deeper tragedy. The Nigerian people, especially the good people of Kogi, are once again left holding the empty medical files. If indeed ₦80 billion vanished under Bello’s watch allegedly, that is ₦80 billion that could have built real hospitals with real doctors and real machines, not just the Instagrammable facades he now refuses to trust with his precious blood pressure; the same blood of Kogi's unpaid workers, ghost teachers, and dying pensioners.
Dear Yahaya Bello, if truly your blood pressure is too high, the nation has a remedy: justice. There’s no better antihypertensive than accountability. Step into the dock. Face your charges. Trust the hospitals you claimed to have built or admit they were Potemkin projects designed to deceive the gullible and enrich the greedy.
If every politician who lied about infrastructure had to receive treatment only in the hospitals they funded, Nigeria would become a medical superpower overnight. Alas, they lie with their lips and flee with their legs.
So, as Yahaya Bello clutches his chest and begs to see foreign doctors, the rest of us clutch our sides from laughter, disbelief, and rage. For in Nigeria, comedy and tragedy walk hand in hand, waving at the ambulance of absurdity.
Let the trial continue. Let the pressure rise, not in his arteries, but in the chambers of justice.
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