By Abu Micheal
There was a time Hon. Bin-Ebaiya Shehu Tijjani held no political office, yet his name rang loudest in Lokoja. From far away Lagos where he built his business, he was touching lives at home, paying school fees, settling hospital bills, fixing water problems and intervening for youths. He did it methodically, stretching his modest resources to meet needs as they came. That reservoir of goodwill is why his election in 2023 was not just an election, it was a referendum. Lokoja did not vote for a stranger, the people voted for a man they already knew and trusted. That context has been conveniently forgotten by a few in the current debate.
To be a lawmaker for Lokoja I is not the same as being a private philanthropist. Lokoja I is not a quiet ward, it is the metropolis itself, it is the state capital where every indigene, resident, trader, student, okada rider and civil servant believes you are his personal representative. Needs are infinite and resources are finite, and in an austere economy no one man can meet all expectations at once. In private life you choose who to help and when, in public office everyone queues at your door at the same time. It is in managing that immense pressure with grace and equanimity that Hon. Bin-Ebaiya has distinguished himself and earned the admiration of the majority.
By every measurable yardstick that defines the role of a legislator, Team-Best as he is fondly called has performed creditably. The primary role of a lawmaker is lawmaking for good governance, representation and oversight, and on all three fronts he has been active and effective. On the floor of the Kogi State House of Assembly he has been vocal and purposeful, moving critical motions on the expansion and strengthening of the Lokoja Urban Mass Transit System to protect residents from arbitrary Keke and Okada charges, and consistently raising issues that touch the capital city directly, from epileptic water supply to youth unemployment and the peculiar urban pressure that comes with being a state capital. He contributes to debates that matter to the common man, not just to fill the Hansard.
His greatest strength, however, has been his strategic closeness to government and his capacity for quiet lobbying that delivers tangible results. Working in seamless synergy with his brother lawmaker and Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Aliyu Umar Yusuf who represents Lokoja II, he has leveraged that relationship to attract dividends of democracy to the entire Lokoja metropolis. Where others shout on social media, he lobbies quietly in the corridors of power and results come home.
His record is verifiable and predates his time in the Assembly. As a private citizen and later as Senior Special Adviser on Water Resources, he undertook water reticulation and the repair of moribund pipes from Karaworo to Up Garage, Felele and other traditional wards, an intervention that was publicly commended by the Hakimi of Ward C. As lawmaker he has sustained that passion with boreholes and facilitation of state interventions to ease the water crisis. In education his impact is equally clear and well documented. Under his Educational Development Programme he paid for 500 free JAMB forms for constituents, organized free computer-based pre-examination lessons for JAMB, WAEC, NECO and NABTEB candidates, and instituted a special reward system for the best ten male and female students who excel. These are not token gestures, they are deliberate investments in the future of Lokoja children. He is by nature very unassuming, and that simplicity has been misconstrued by some as weakness, but it is not weakness, it is his greatest strength, reflected in his calm ability to build bridges, to listen, to forgive and to keep working while others make noise.
This is where we must pause and reflect on the danger of the pull-him-down syndrome that has crept into our politics. As the great Chinua Achebe warned, “A man who does not know where the rain began to beat him cannot know where he dried his body.” We have forgotten where we started with Team-Best and we risk destroying what we built with our own hands. The renowned American civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr., put it more directly when he said, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” If we choose to pull down our own because of temporary anger, we all perish politically as fools.
The Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka has also reminded us that, “The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny,” and today tyranny takes the form of unsubstantiated criticism, of calumny without facts, of anger without reason. We cannot keep silent while a few attempt to destroy a performing lawmaker with deliberate falsehood. The consequences of such mischief are grave. As Mahatma Gandhi taught us, “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.” If we repay good with bad, if we blind ourselves with envy, Lokoja I will be the ultimate loser.
William Shakespeare captured this self-destructive trait centuries ago when he wrote in Julius Caesar that, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” The fault in Lokoja I is not in lack of performance by Hon. Bin-Ebaiya, the fault is in ourselves, in our impatience, in our crab mentality that rejoices when one of us falls. And as the late sage Obafemi Awolowo cautioned, “The worst thing that can happen to a people is to lose a good leader to the intrigues of a few disgruntled elements.” We must not allow that to happen.
In every second term contest there will be hurdles and Lokoja I is no exception. Findings show that the loudest tantrums against Hon. Bin-Ebaiya are coming from one axis, Ward A, where there was a perception that it was their turn. Aspiration is legitimate and contest is allowed in a democracy, but what is not normal is for dissent to continue after a credible process has been concluded. In Lokoja I, stakeholders subjected all aspirants to an open secret ballot, every aspirant agreed to the process, and the result was emphatic with 18 votes for Bin-Ebaiya against 6 and 1 for others. His own Ward B, which had agitated for years for representation, the time is now to solidly rally behind its son. One wonders why it is difficult for other sections to accept the outcome in good faith. There will always be another time, and tomorrow it may be your turn. Except for dissidents, party supremacy ordinarily compels members to unite after a contest, and that is the APC way.
This is therefore a passionate appeal to the few aggrieved persons still holding on to grievances to let go and look at the bigger picture. Let us put our differences behind us and ask as party members what we stand to benefit if we waste our votes voting ADC, PDP or other opposition parties only to lose woefully. Where will we hide our faces afterwards. If the lawmaker when accosted has apologized and appealed for forgiveness for any perceived slight, to what extent should our anger go except there is something else not known politically. Politics should not be about pull-him-down, people can raise objections in positive light, but not unsubstantiated criticism driven by malice. The crab mentality that seeks to pull down its own must be disregarded in the election of the next House of Assembly member for Lokoja I.
For now APC has become the mainstay in Kogi State and in Lokoja, it would be foolhardy for Lokoja I to go the way of the opposition, a feat that is very difficult to achieve and a misadventure that will ultimately stand in the way of its own sponsors. Change is important in politics, but change for change sake does not serve the yearning and aspirations of the people. What is currently available does not match what Team-Best offers in experience, accessibility, party loyalty and proven performance. He may not have done everything, no leader does, but his best far outweighs his shortcomings when juxtaposed with available resources and the performance of other lawmakers in the Assembly.
Hon. Bin-Ebaiya has used his first term to lay a veritable springboard that will enable constituents to see visible and verifiable accomplishments in his second term. First terms are for learning the ropes, for understanding the system and for building contacts, second terms are for consolidating and delivering. He has learnt, he has listened and he is ready to do more. Let us not be tenants in another man’s house when we can be landlords in our own APC, it is better to be in a party where your voice counts than to queue behind as a stranger elsewhere only to be later called a traitor and betrayer. As the American President John F. Kennedy famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” and now is the time to ask what we can do for Lokoja I by returning a man who has already shown what he can do for us. The time for Ward B APC to take ownership of Team-Best is now, he is their bride, and anything short of a resounding victory from Ward B after long years of agitation will make them a mockery before history. Let us give this young, unassuming and superlatively performing lawmaker another chance for continuity, for sustainability and for the greater good of Lokoja I and the APC.
– Abu Micheal writes from Lokoja.
