By Ibrahim Jombali
It is now too obvious that the bells of inevitable defeat are ringing very loud in the hearts of Bello Abdullahi. By all purposes and appearances, Bello Abdullahi’s lengthy sermon masquerades as a call for accountability. On closer inspection, it is little more than a political pamphlet desperately searching for substance. Wrapped in the fashionable language of transparency, it offers neither evidence of wrongdoing nor a coherent argument. It is a document long on insinuation and short on intellect; rich in repetition but poor in reason. Such is the sorry state of our nation when people whose rotten heads should be buried in shame now enjoy the undeserved luxury of making loud but empty noise.
One does not become a champion of accountability merely by chanting “open the books” more than ten times . Bello should ask his boss to open his books of ten years. In kebbi, the books are open, and the projects are obvious.
In economics, as in governance, serious people begin with facts and then draw conclusions. Bello Abdullahi prefers the reverse. He begins with suspicion, manufactures doubt, and hopes that endless questions will substitute for evidence.
That is not accountability. It is intellectual laziness.
The most striking weakness of his essay is that it accidentally destroys its own argument. Throughout the piece, he repeatedly cites government announcements, publicly available budget figures, procurement disclosures, project launches, education interventions, and festival expenditure estimates.
The obvious question, therefore, arises: if the government is as opaque as he claims, where exactly did he obtain all the information he spent thousands of words quoting?
The contradiction is glaring.
You can not simultaneously accuse a government of hiding information while building your entire article around information the same government has publicly released.
That is not scrutiny.
That is political theatre.
More fundamentally, Bello demonstrates a shallow understanding of how public finance works.
Government expenditure is not managed through newspaper columns. It is governed by budgetary appropriations, procurement regulations, legislative oversight, audit procedures, financial reporting systems, and constitutional accountability mechanisms.
The Kebbi State House of Assembly scrutinises budgets.
The Auditor-General audits expenditure.
The Public Procurement framework regulates contracting.
Relevant ministries, departments, and agencies maintain records subject to established procedures.
Yet Bello writes as though governance operates like a roadside market where every invoice must be carried daily to opposition offices for inspection.
That is not how institutions function anywhere in the world.
The irony is even more amusing when one considers the political platform from which these demands emerge.
The ADC suddenly discovered transparency in 2026.
Where was this evangelical passion for accountability when governments controlled by politicians now seeking refuge in the ADC presided over billions in public expenditure across Nigeria?
Where were the endless essays demanding procurement records?
Where were the daily press conferences demanding invoices and vouchers?
Apparently, transparency becomes fashionable only when one is out of power.
Such selective morality is not accountability. It is opportunism.
Take the education interventions he mentions.
The government procures textbooks, tablets, motorcycles, vehicles and teaching materials for schools.
Instead of acknowledging the obvious developmental value of such investments, Bello’s instinct is to count cartons before counting outcomes.
The real question citizens ask is simple: Are children learning in better conditions than before?
Are schools receiving support?
Are teachers getting resources?
Has educational access improved?
These are the metrics by which governance is ultimately judged.
A politician obsessed with invoices but indifferent to outcomes resembles a doctor more interested in the receipt than the patient.
The same intellectual poverty runs through his treatment of the Argungu International Fishing and Cultural Festival.
A festival that attracts visitors, stimulates commerce, promotes tourism, and preserves culture and projects Kebbi’s identity onto the global stage is reduced by Bello to an accounting spreadsheet.
By his reasoning, the government should spend less time developing economic assets and more time responding to endless politically motivated interrogatories.
No serious economy has ever grown through the weaponisation of suspicion.
Development requires oversight, certainly.
But it also requires vision.
Bello offers plenty of the former and none of the latter.
His discussion of SEMA is perhaps the weakest section of all. He openly admits he possesses no evidence. He acknowledges no finding of misconduct. He cites no audit report. He references no investigative outcome. The case is different in some cases where outcomes have emerged from reports and actions are already pronounced and are heavily available in the public domain.
Yet, he still attempts to create a cloud of doubt around the institution.
This is the oldest trick in political communication: lacking proof and manufacturing suspicion and producing mischief.
Responsible public discourse does not work that way.
If there is evidence, present it.
If there is wrongdoing, expose it.
If there is corruption, report it.
But if all one possesses are rumours wrapped in rhetoric, the honest response is silence until facts emerge.
What ultimately makes Bello’s article so narrow is not its demand for transparency. Of course, transparency is a legitimate democratic expectation.
The problem is that the article contains no serious analysis of governance, no understanding of public finance, no appreciation of developmental priorities, and no evidence of misconduct.
It is a watery exercise in opposition politics masquerading as civic engagement. Those whose past actions almost strangulated the nation do not have the moral stamina to moralise society.
In a very unwitty way, the writer mistakes noise for scrutiny, repetition for argument, and suspicion for proof.
Kebbi people deserve accountability.
They also deserve a jittery opposition capable of producing evidence rather than essays, facts rather than insinuations and analysis rather than political itchiness. Even desperation has its own limitations.
Governance should indeed be scrutinised.
But scrutiny without facts is gossip, deceitful gossip that has failed to win the hearts of the kebbi people since three years ago.
Questions without context are propaganda. The type of propaganda that fails even its architects.
Transparency demands made without intellectual honesty are merely partisan slogans searching desperately for attention that will vehemently tefuse to come.
Before shouting “Open the Books” again, Bello Abdullahi may wish to open a textbook on public finance, institutional governance, and evidence-based argument. Verily, knowledge is power.
The Kaura administration is founded on transparency, accountability, and honesty. The focus is on progress and development, and no amount of propaganda can deceive the beautiful people of Kebbi State or stop Kaura’s transformation agenda.
Ibrahim Abubakar Jombali
Special Adviser on Public Enlightenment and Orientation to the Kebbi State Governor