2019 Election: Why Senator Atai Aidoko Ali Can’t Beguile Kogi East The Fifth Time (1)

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How time flies!  So the saying goes. Here we are, preparing for 2019 general election – a time to vote and be voted for.  At the same time,  a time for electorate to take stocks of those who represented them in the last four years.   A time to scrutinize dossiers of performance of Representatives in office with a view to make or mar them as they present themselves for election.
Senator Atai Aidoko Ali,  currently representing Kogi East Senatorial District will contest 2019 elections on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the fifth time. As he contests alongside others, it is curious and incumbent on any rational mind to know his performances in the last  fifteen years.
Let me be quick,  therefore,  that I don’t want to be partisan,  but to look at the issue at stake from the logical perspective. It’s reasonable for one to dissect issues between facts and fictions, between propaganda and reality.   It is on this premise,  I dare to say,  Senator Atai Aidoko Ali has damning performance as Senator representing Kogi East Senatorial District in the last fifteen years at the lower and upper legislative chambers.  As the legal
maxim goes,  “res ipsa loquitor”,  facts speak for themselves.   The social vices, lack of federal government infrastructure, under development,  the lack of strong voices each time the eastern Senatorial district was attacked by Fulani herdsmen are facts that speaks for themselves.
Very damning to an extent that he fears the unknown each time election approaches, hence,  he resort to helping himself by ballot snatching in connivance with corrupt elements at the INEC system.
For now,  Senate is the highest political office left for Igala and Bassa people of Kogi East and it will be suicidal for the zone to fall prey,  beguiled or hypnotised in voting Aidoko again.  The reason is very simple.   The  lawmaker hardly initiates, or sponsors motions that concern the zone he represents at the red Chambers.
For example,  when there was gunmen attack on Agbenema in Omala Local government and Oganenigu as well as some communities in Dekina Local government,  all in the eastern Senatorial district,  Aidoko did not raise the issue of urgent national importance to draw public empathy until his colleague from the Western district,  Senator Dino Melaye did.
Secondly,  the unfortunate incident happened sometime in March,  2018,  and since then,  the Senator has neither visited the scene,  nor called on the Federal government to send relief materials,  or lobbied the Senate Committee on Defense and National Security to pick up the issue.
“Lobbying”,  the world over, is a privilege of lawmakers to lobby for infrastructural development and it remains incomprehensible that the Senator representing Kogi East has never moved for the zone to be connected to the national grid.
Time has come for political office holders to see that they were not elected to the office for perks,  but to trigger development.   In Kogi East, development has eroded and was still eroding the zone.   Of the three Senatorial district of Kogi State, the Western flank has two Federal Universities.   Federal University,  Lokoja and Federal University of Agriculture,  Kabba  which  was sponsored and passed into law by Senator Dino Melaye.   The question begging for answers is,  what has Senator Atai Aidoko Ali attracted to the zone in the last fifteen years?
In as much as the electorate would not be exculpated in woes that betide the land for always being there for the Senator when he needed their votes, the lawmaker needed not belabouring himself that much,  if he had performed.
It’s no wonder that he would always arm-twist PDP primary election process and resorted to the coward’s alternative, thereby becoming a subject of legal fireworks thereafter.
For sure,  fifteen years was quite a long time. Political enlightenment of the electorate has grown alongside the election dynamics. A time when a politician is voted into office and suddenly disappeared only to emerge from the blues with handouts during election is gone.
To be continued.
– Atek’ojo Samson Usman writes from Abuja and can be reached at ateko2007@gmail.com

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