How Nigeria Democracy Is Gradually Getting Better, Constituent Are Asking For Accountability-Hon Baba-Hassan

Yakubu Busari

The Member Representing Jos North-North in Plateau State House of Assembly, the Former Deputy Speaker, Rt.Hon Ibrahim Baba-Hassan, one of the oldest who has been at Assembled since 2007 and has contributed effectively to the growth of democracy in Plateau state.

Speaking at his residence around Gold Base, Rayfield, Rt. Hon Ibrahim Baba-Hassan x-rayed some of the successes recorded as a nation, the good, the bad, and the ugly situation Nigeria has gone through in nation-building.

The Excerpt:

Of recent the state conducted LGs election to usher in democratically elected executive chairmen what is your take?

The Local government election has come and gone, so I want to congratulate the Governor, also PLASIEC, the security agencies, and our amiable electorates for their peaceful conduct that ensured free and fair, and credible exercise devoid of no violence, no thuggery so I want to say a big congratulations to the people of Plateau State.

My political journey is full of humanitarian impact, I put the people of my constituency above my personal interest by ensuring that I touch their lives and show them, love, through the selfless sacrifice of empowering women and youth empowerments skills.

In my oversight functions, I visited communities and identified with their immediate needs, and attracted state and federal projects by Lobbying the executive to transform areas of special attention.

Jos North LG is participating in a voting exercise after 20 years of the democratic journey what is your view?

That is why it is always good to be at the mainstream of every political party, You know that the people of Jos North usually play the politics of belonging to the opposition camp, but this time around they’re in a winning party and because of understanding between the contestants, the flag bearer emerged victoriously, Hon Shehu Usman Bala was elected as the Executive Chairman of Jos North LGA through consensus.

Jos North enjoys the diversity of tribes, religions, and a flashpoint for political crises, what do you think should be done to remedy it?

That is why after the swearing-in ceremony, we sat down with Shehu Bala and I told him that now the victory is his, so he has a lot to do. You know Jos North is the whole of Nigeria. That is why I always tell them that I’m representing Nigeria because there are no tribes of Plateau state that are not found in Jos North. So in dealing with that one has to be very serious and sincere, thank God he has the experience he has been the secretary, Management committee Chairman and now the executive Chairman so I believed he has the prerequisite require experience to pilot the affairs of the council.

In Jos North, we have so many tribes, so many religions, so he should try and balance and to do Justice to every tribe and every religion, that is the basic thing.

You have been a member for 12 years what do you think is the secret of your longevity in office?

The secret is that I just believed is God Almighty, God found it that I would be the person that will be there all these years, and to God be the glory God gave the ideas and the wisdom to manage my constituents effectively despite all the challenges the people still agreed with us so we should thank God.

Now that you’re almost leaving office are you going to contest for any post again?

That is for God to decide and if the people of Jos North found me worthy, fine and if they say is OK for me to contest again, fine, I’m grateful to them, for all they’ve done everything for me and my family.

Nigeria as a country is going through economic challenges is there any hope?.

Yes, we can, we have to come back to the drawing board and carefully see where the mistakes came from, speaking to the 17 LGAs Chairmen shortly after their oaths of office. I said to them that we must look inward because of what is coming from the federation in Abuja it can’t even pay worker’s salary anymore so all of them they have to look inward.

We have to work hard to improve IGR rather than looking for ways that can generate revenue so that we can provide dividends of democracy, this is not time that you start buying expensive cars or doing a project that is not people-oriented because all projects that they’re going to excuse must have to be attached to development focus of the people.

I want to assure you that we will be on our toes to checkmate their spending.

For years all attempts to conduct elections into the chairmanship of Jos North LGA failed woefully what made the present Governor succeed?

I think what really happened now is that due to Mr. Governor’s honesty, Governor Lalong doesn’t take any decision without due consultation with the stakeholders, he makes sure that the people decide who to governed them. I won’t cite an example when we had four people who bought forms, Hon Theresa’s Azi, Rauf Pam, Shehu Bala, Philip Arin, and Ezekiel Shina we went on research on it we indeed came out with a consensus candidate.

Every one of them agreed with the governor wisdom within 10 minutes we resolve that issue when he said the four of them, one will be deputy chairman, one secretary, and one other person should be left for me and you see he solved all our problems in less than 10 minutes.

The governor used wisdom to resolve lingering political internal wrangling of which power was shared amongst the contestants.

Nigeria at 61, are we moving toward the right direction or a nation without a Shepherd?

To me we are seriously improving, however, that is my personal opinion, there is an improvement on issues of democracy, infrastructural development, manpower and remember the state of emergency imposed by the former President Obasanjo to Plateau state during Governor Joshua Dariye and it works then that can’t happen again so we are getting there by this action.