We have read a letter written by some stakeholders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Jama’are local government area of Bauchi state to the member of the House of Representatives, representing Jama’are and Itas Gadau local governments constituency.
In the said letter published in this newspaper, the purported stakeholders alleged that the law maker had abandoned them since after election. But what they fail to understand is that Honourable Mashema is at the National Assembly to represent the constituents not the selfish few political godfathers.
We are a team of beneficiaries of Bashir Uba Mashema Empowerment Programme with the support of 21 APC stakeholders of Jama’are local government area.
Mashema Empowerment Programme is an empowerment scheme strategically planned and executed by the member of the House of Representatives, representing the good and harmonious people of Jama’are/Itas-Gadau federal constituency at the National Assembly.
The programme which was designed to support the constituents to be economically buoyant, self reliant and reduce poverty in the local government areas benefits not only party members but any deserving citizens of the two areas.
Another thing worthy of note is that the authors of the letter were few out of the committee of APC stakeholders of Jama’are local government area. As such, they were not representing the entire stakeholders but themselves.
To put the record straight, the committee of stakeholders of the All Progressives Congress in Jama’are local government area has a total of 27 members, and six out of the 27 members cannot form a quorum no matter how powerful the six members may claim to be.
But to our greatest dismay, we woke up in the early hours of Sunday, November 7, 2021, with a story in some national dailies that some self-claimed-stakeholders (six) have issued a press release in which they berated Honourable Bashir Uba Mashema. They went further to publish a letter in Blueprint where they made allegations of abandonment by the legislator.
We know where their problem is, they have been in the political sphere of Jama’are local government area for long, playing the role of political godfathers in which every elected member would be dancing to their tune leaving the constituents with no dividend of democracy.
The coming of Bashir Mashema changed the narrative as he has become answerable to the constituents not to the so called political godfathers. We since predicted a revolt from those that have been manipulating our elected representatives ever since Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999.
We noticed from their press release issued through their spokesperson, one Isah Muhammad Dangaladima, that they called themselves APC critical stakeholders of Jama’are local government area of Bauchi state, but we don’t know when, where and who elevated them to such status. All we know about them is nothing other than stakeholders, and we have 27 of them here in Jama’are local government area.
So, six out of 27 cannot unilaterally elevate themselves to a status of deciding for other 21 members. We categorically state that the press release issued through Dangaladima does not reflect the true picture of the good and harmonious relationship existing between the good people of Jama’are and Itas/Gadau local government areas. Dangaladima and his cohorts are out with political propaganda to blackmail Honourable Bashir Uba Mashema who has been a symbol of political unity and political integration between the people of Jama’are and Itas/Gadau.
Their tactics is a systematic approach to divide and rule, and their voice is never the voice of the good people of Jama’are local government area, especially APC loyalists.
Their write up was full of greed and self-centredness. Since Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999, Jama’are had been producing members of the National Assembly except Honourable
Bashir Uba Mashema for the first time from Itas/Gadau local government area and that is why Dangaladima and his cohorts are bending this low with their political propaganda to smear the good image of the lawmaker in Jama’are.
According to them, …”that the party stakeholders in Jama’are played important role towards his election in 2019 to represent the constituency in the National Assembly but accused him of shunning them’’. From this, Dangaladima and co have shown the world that they are fighting for themselves not for the good people of Jama’are local government area and that is why we earlier stated that their voice is never the voice of the constituents.
Mashema has executed numerous projects impacting the lives of the constituents in his empowerment programme.
He distributed 24 cars to his constituents, 191 motorcycles to another beneficiaries. He provided 100 water pumping machines, 129 grinding machines in the two areas of his constituency.
In addition, he distributed 100 sewing machines and donated N10,000 cash to each of 500 small business start-ups beneficiaries all within the last two years.
Going by the above figure, we the writers of this rejoinder, who are 1, 065 in number have all benefitted from Bashir Uba Mashema Empowerment Programme. So, to say that Mashema is shunning his constituents is nothing but a political propaganda to achieve a greedy goal.
Concerning the recently concluded APC local government congress, they said, “We noticed that because you emanated from Itas-Gadau local government, you allowed saboteurs to temper with the result of our local government. Your inactions were highly unacceptable and did not go down well with all APC critical stakeholders of Jama’are local government area’’. On this we will call upon Honourable Dangaladima to tell the whole world if there was really anything like consensus in Jama’are and we will really charge him to answer the following questions:
How was the consensus reached? When and where was it carried out? Were all the stakeholders, delegates and candidates present? Who stepped down for who?
If not for the wisdom of Bashir Uba Mashema, APC would have been no more in Jama’are local government area of Bauchi state, because he is the only one that listened to the appeals of the side-lined candidates and helped them in tabling their complains before the APC local governments congress appeal committee, the result of which is a harmonised executives for the local government cutting across all the camps.
Adamu writes on behalf of the beneficiaries of Mashema Empowerment Programmes.
