Though a borrowed idea, the engagement of political contestants, especially gubernatorial candidates, in an interactive session organized by the Kaduna State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) is a fundamental discharge of a responsibility that helps to particularly facilitate the on-going electioneering and generally strengthen the country’s democracy.
As trained and more fundamentally practising information gatherers, interviewers and investigators, journalists are best positioned and most required to subject the antecedents and claims of political power seekers to analysis on behalf of all the other people.
It is largely because the Journalists of all the various categories have noticeably failed to satisfactorily deliver on this critical mandate that some interest groups have now literarily filled the vacuum. A lot of such groups are evidently mere advocates of divisions and disunity or even, worse still, paid campaigners of some of the contestants and are therefore not genuinely committed to the search for the absolute truth about each of the candidates.
An interaction such as the one currently being co-ordinated by the Asma’u Yawo Halilu-led Kaduna State Council of the NUJ is therefore the most appropriate event for a thorough scrutiny of the respective of projects of the candidates.It is a kind of engagement to which the electorate look up in order to know the objective truth about the quality and sincerity of individual contestants.
Although it will be an exaggeration or overstatement to just conclude that the interaction has adequately served its purpose, the fact remains that the NUJ has now been found to have fulfilled a fundamental requirement of the people for a sufficient knowledge about the records and plans of those aspiring for elective positions. The natural expectation that the NUJ members would professionally extract valuable and reliable pieces of information from the contestants about their ambitions remains the basis of the conclusion that the interaction is a beautiful idea.
The prompt response to the NUJ’s invitation and the resultant participation of some of the gubernatorial candidates in the interaction have indicated the huge value that they have duly attached to it. Each of the four gubernatorial candidates who have so far participated in the event tried, in a typical manner of a power seeker, to address the basic issues that are of utmost concern to the people of Kaduna State, which are about the prevailing challenges in the areas of security, education, health and the rest of them.
When it was his turn on Saturday 3rd November 2022, the Gubernatorial Candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who is also the Senator representing Kaduna Central Zone, Uba Sani, chose to differ from the others by challenging the journalists to reflect more on the performances of at least three of his opponents—Isa Mohammed Ashiru of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Jonathan Asake of the Labour Party (LP) and Sule Usman Hunkuyi of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), than on their campaign promises. He stressed the need for journalists to generate details of their respective contributions, as former members of the National Assembly, to law-making which is the most fundamental function of the legislature.
The APC gubernatorial flag bearer who is justifiably boastful about his records in the Senate in the last three and a half years, demanded Ashiru and Asake as former members of the Federal House of Representatives as well as Hunkuyi as a former senator to mention the number of bills they either sponsored or even co-sponsored which ideally should serve as a strong basis of any assessment of their performances while there. Senator Uba, in fact, insisted that the failure of the three of them to serve the purpose for which they were elected into the National Assembly is an enough reason for the people of Kaduna State to reject them during the forthcoming elections.
It is quite easy, on the basis of this challenge by the Kaduna State APC Gubernatorial Candidate, to remember some basic facts about the principles of journalism on the one hand and representation or law-making on the other. The persistent complaints over both the failure of the media to, as duly required by the public, to hold elected representatives and leaders to account and low performance of particularly some lawmakers from the Northern part of the country have made this challenge quite necessary.
Having presented 31 bills, seven of which have already been passed by the two chambers of the National Assembly apart from the two that have become laws, he is the only member of the current Ninth Senate to have such an appreciable record and therefore enjoys the right to challenge opponents to also flaunt theirs. His claim that, as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions, he has made immense contributions to the developments of the sector is obviously valid.
It was also clear during the NUJ interactive session that Senator Uba fully set out to provoke not only his co-contestants but also all other critics of the APC government in Kaduna State whom he accused of only consistently attacking Governor Nasir Ahmed El-Rufa’i without, in any way, making the necessary contributions towards community development.
He specifically mentioned the assistance he renders, through the Uba Sani Foundation, to the deserving members of the society just to, as he put it, provoke all those critics into doing something similar. It is his belief that had all those attackers of the policies of the government been concerned enough over the numerous predicaments being experienced by the people of Kaduna State in particular and the country in general they would have used their abundant wealth to support those in need.
Senator Uba Sani successfully played the roles of both a challenger and a provocateur during the interaction as a result of which a lot of impressions about him have now significantly changed. Many of those whose judgement on him was negative are now better informed about his capacity, intentions and readiness for service delivery.
Both the challenge and the provocation by the senator are clear manifestations of rare courage and concern which should compel journalists as seekers, processors and disseminators of information as well as elected representatives of the people and influencial members of the society to be a lot more responsive to the county’s basic needs. There is almost everything for almost everybody in his presentation.
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