Ahmed Attah: Audacity of a true leader By Inuwa Wada

It has been discussed by many great minds and intellectuals that major set-back to a people’s development and growth is the problem of leadership. It also trite to state that there is never a people or society found in any advanced state that does not have a leader that inspires and plots the compass of their developmental advancement. Once a nation wants to progress, it is imperative for that country or state to develop a system of leadership recruitments. The stability of any nation depends on the quality of leadership it recruited for itself. This why the All Progressives Congress (APC) Zonal Chairman, Kogi East, Ahmed Attah, believes that as a leader of a zone in a political organization and party such as the APC, he has a responsibility to aggrandize rather than aggravate the people whom God has placed at his disposal to lead. This is because the recent successes recorded by the APC in the North central zone of this country is due to the fact that he understands the language and ethics of leadership. Attah’s leadership style has endeared him to all and sundry. No wonder he has in the short period since he ascended the leadership of the zonal areas which comprises nine local government areas and jurisdictions been a lesson on political institutional leadership. His style of leadership and political persuasion has made the party popular and the party to beat in any election. The character of any leader depends on his morals. We need to take into cognisance the quality of leadership provided by Ahmed. He has always stated that he is grateful to God and his parents for instilling in him from childhood the lessons of good character and high morals which he has translated to the success of all his endeavours. All the people he has met in life have attested to his high moral standards. The real reason our people have not gotten hold of the goods that democracy can give is when politics is not played according to its rules of engagement. Attah habours no hatred against anybody because politics is a game of numbers and has no place for grievances. We only need to persuade our people of the soundness of our political points and manifestoes rather than the injuries we bring to play in the psyche of our people because of our old ways of playing politics. Ahmed Attah has always stood by the downtrodden in our society and that is why he is loved by all. As zonal chairman he has attracted development to his area of leadership because he knows the people acknowledge development as the major muscle of politics. He always made sure that all members of his party occupying political positions lived up to expectations by making them stand on their toes to work for the benefit of their people who are the real owners of the office they occupy. Today, the people of Kogi East zone of the APC are witnessing their greatest era of development and political harmony. If leadership is a stabilizing factor in development then Ahmed Attah epitomises stability and harmony. Today, as the stabilizing political personality of Kogi East zone he has taken upon himself the fatherly political role which ensures that the party as the ruling party is ideally respected by the people. The perception of the people about the APC in the zone in question is high because of Attah’s leadership of the party. Today, the party stands a great chance of maintaining its reign in the next general elections, thanks to its leadership. The APC being the party to beat in the state cannot afford to rest on it oars as the leadership of the party always emphasized. To the party zonal chairman, there is no perfection in the affairs of men as there is always work to be done to make the party deliver the dividend of democracy to the people who have been very magnanimous in voting the APC to power. In the area of public enlightenment and sensitisation, the zonal chairman has done a lot having recognised that perception is everything in politics. He has done everything to continuously keep the image of the party high among the people of the zone. The party has a unified system of solving any contentious issue among members and between the executive at the zone and the public as a deliberate policy to nip any problem in the bud before it goes public. In any human endeavour that is public oriented problems do occur and in recognition of this the zone devised ready-made approach to help assuage the problems. The APC in the zone in the state is a big family with a listening father who engages all the members equally without discrimination due to influence, social strata and the individual’s standings in the society. The zonal chairman always emphasizes that politics is about the people and everybody is important. With this approach, the party is the party to beat in any election. As we approach the next elections, the need for the unity of purpose in the APC can never be overemphasized as it is only the APC that can defeat itself today in Kogi state and the zone in particular. The need for party discipline has been emphasized over and over again. Thank God that the zonal chairman’s watchword is always about the supremacy of the party over all interest as he has always emphasized that no ambition of any group or members in the APC in the zone is worth the destruction of the party. He has always advocated and used the principle of the carrot and stick in the areas of discipline and reward. Every member who shows loyalty to the party above self is entitled to a loyalist’s compensation as a deliberate policy and any member that wants to constitute himself into any problem for the party is punished and reprimanded according to the constitution of the party. Finally, the zonal chairman’s leadership style has endeared him to many and made the APC a party to beat and choice in the zone. There is need for all and sundry to support him to pilot the affairs of the party in the right direction. Wada writes from Lokoja, Kogi state