The fear most electorate and political stakeholders always have is betrayal from the people that come to seek support from them. You will always hear politicians crying foul that “After pushing a car, the driver only runs away and leaves them sniffing the smoke of his car”.
This is exactly what Honourable Bashir Uba Mashema, member of the House of Representatives for Jama’are and Itas-Gadau local government areas of Bauchi state is doing to us the stakeholders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Jama’are.
Since his election, he abandoned us his constituents and stopped participating in all political activities of Jama’are local government area. In fact, we are not just stakeholders of the APC in Jama’are local government area but also critical stakeholders.
We, the critical party stakeholders in Jama’are, played important role towards his election in 2019 to represent the constituency in the National Assembly but his absenteeism in the local government area is a source of concern to us who led him to victory.
The voters have been asking us questions about him since we were the ones that presented him to them as our candidate. So, what answer can we give them when we too do not see him or hear from him? The truth is, we will only be embarrassed as nobody feels his presence in the local government area.
Mashema should remember that he owes the party and stakeholders of Jama’are local government area loyalty, show of care and concern because they are instrumental to his success and emergence as a member of the National Assembly.
The next election in 2023 is drawing closer every passing day, so anyone that toys with his party or those who stand by him, does so at his own risk. A stitch in time, it is said, saves nine.
Aside not visiting the local government area, Mashema has since stopped participating in all political activities in the area.
We unanimously supported him with the belief that when he emerges as the winner, he would represent the good people of Jama’are/Itas-Gadau federal constituency without any prejudice; that he would stand for their political interests and would be more helpful and carry everyone along.
However, since he assumed office as a representative of the people of the aforementioned constituency, his constituents are feeling a sense of neglect as he has stopped visiting them and shunned participating in all the political activities of Jama’are local government area, in particular.
For instance, Jama’are APC recently conducted congresses through consensus as recommended by the national headquarters of the party, but the federal lawmaker played no role in the process of conducting the congresses.
We noticed that because he hails from Itas-Gadau local government area, he allowed saboteurs to temper with the result of our local government area. His inactions were highly unacceptable and did not go down well with all APC critical stakeholders of Jama’are local government area.
As our representative and a strong APC stakeholder in our constituency, he was supposed to be actively involved in the process of conducting the congresses.
In the same vein, the APC critical stakeholders of Jama’are local government area observed with utmost dismay that there were attempts by saboteurs to temper with the results initially submitted by the critical stakeholders to the national headquarters with a view to wreaking havoc in our local government area and Mashema made no effort to save the situation.
We equally observe that the so-called person appointed by the saboteurs to serve as APC party chairman of Jama’are local government area happens to be Mashema’s campaign coordinator and up to the moment of writing this letter, the lawmaker has kept mute.
Furthermore, our previous representatives had treated the people of Jama’are and Itas-Gadau local government areas equally and this had brought about peaceful coexistence and development in the two areas.
Finally, yet importantly, we urge Mashema to focus his attention on representing the interests of his constituents, irrespective of political affiliations, with a view to bringing meaningful developments in the two local government areas.
Dangaladima writes on behalf of Jama’are APC stakeholders.
