Aliero: Legacy of leadership and service

The electioneering season is typically characterized by the scramble for elective offices among politicians. Every aspirant insists on being most eminently qualified, flaunting whatever accomplishment considered a testimonial of relevance to the burning desire to occupy elective offices. Of course not all that glitters is gold, so also not all those blowing their own trumpets […]

The electioneering season is typically characterized by the scramble for elective offices among politicians. Every aspirant insists on being most eminently qualified, flaunting whatever accomplishment considered a testimonial of relevance to the burning desire to occupy elective offices. Of course not all that glitters is gold, so also not all those blowing their own trumpets produce a meritorious melody. In fact, if the record of service of our elected politicians is reflected in the state of the nation, such trumpet-blowing is a hollow herald of inordinate ambition rather than hearty harbinger of public service.

This narrative serves as a befitting basis for focusing the spotlight of spectacular record of public service on one of the country’s prominent politicians who successfully transformed into the respected ranks of national political leaders in the distinguished person of Senator Mohammed Adamu Aliero (Kebbi Central).

It was recently widely reported that Senator Aliero had indicated his interest to re-contest for the Senate for the third time in the next elections soon after he submitted his nomination form at the state’s APC Secretariat, in Birnin-Kebbi, accompanied by hundreds of his supporters.

Unlike a majority of Nigerian politicians who regard politics as a profession that needs no prior education or training since their objective is just to spoil themselves a lot with the perks and privileges of the elective offices, Senator Aliero was appropriately oriented and intellectually equipped as an ABU Zaria graduate of political science before going into politics. The unique outcome of his political career cannot be dissociated from this professional knowledge and mentorship and the added value of broad philosophical perspectives and ethical insights into international best practices.

The Aliero example is a vindication of the case for replacing our so-called professional politicians with the recognized class of professionals taking up politics to add value rather than subtract dividends of democracy. Even the notorious tendency to prey on public treasuries as a matter of entitlement which has become a horrifying hallmark of the typical unskilled and unlettered politician will be substantially eliminated when accomplished professionals and political scientists with established means of livelihood populate the political arena and form parties.

Senator Aliero’s reported interest in a “third-term” is not nearly as remarkable as his preceding prowess as Nigeria’s first elected all rounder in democratic dispensation that earned him “GSM” by popular acclamation, an enviable acronym acknowledging three major milestones of Governor, Senator and Minister he attained long before his current tenure. For the avoidance of doubt, Mohammed Adamu Aliero’s meteoric ascendance to the heights of elective offices saw him through two terms of governorship of Kebbi State (1999-2007), followed by his first brief stint in the Senate from June 5, 2007 till December 18, 2008, after which he was specially recognized and selected for appointment as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in December 2008 to March 2010. His current tenure in the Senate began in 2015. This outstanding political career has no match!

It is worth stating that Aliero did not just occupy these top positions of responsibility, he made indelible positive impact in each and every one of them. Arguably, his two terms as Executive Governor of Kebbi State were the high points of his record of service, followed by his pace setting tenure as FCT Minister. The tremendous transformation of Kebbi State from rural state to model of modernity in the north-west geo-political zone and indeed country-wide remains a marvel of scope of development and time span unrivalled anywhere else.

Birnin Kebbi got an awesome face-lift and infrastructural enhancement in asphalted road networks, housing estates, a range of new government buildings such as Government House and Presidential Lodges giving it the befitting status of a state capital for the first time since the state was created. To crown this Eldorado-effect, Aliero initiated and completed the first modern airport that opened up the state to the rest of Nigeria and the world at large with direct connections thereby ending the subordinating inconvenience of depending on Sokoto Airport. Aliero’s pioneering development drive was felt in every local government of Kebbi State, not to mention the rejuvenation of the agricultural, educational, health sectors as well as tourism through the resumption of the flagship Argungu International Fishing Festival.

As FCT Minister, Aliero’s tenure was no less transformational. The residents of the FCT witnessed the seemingly impossible solution to the decades of frustrating and embarrassing ordeal of grueling traffic gridlock on the two major access highways along Kubwa and Airport roads when Aliero initiated and virtually completed the marvelous multiple-lanes reconstruction and expansion of the highways. At the Senate, Aliero exhibited insight, experience and agenda setting initiatives especially in revenue generation, efficient tax collection and tariff revenue, an eloquent testimony to his appreciation of the main challenges militating against increased rate of development in the country.  These uncommon records of service at state and federal tiers of government significantly elevated Mohammed Adamu Aliero’s leadership status both in Kebbi State where he has since been rightfully recognized as the defacto political leader of the people and at the national arena which similarly distinguishes him as highly regarded influential statesman remain incontestable feats that place him well above the typical politician.

Yet, it is still more extra-ordinary that Aliero raised the bar much higher by his singular exemplary commitment to spare no effort in promoting the economic empowerment and industrialization of his people of Kebbi State and by extension Nigeria, outside his very engaging official obligations and duties.  We may search but hardly find a politician and political leader whose career of service goes beyond the routine schedule of his elective office and who channels his private resources to establish and generate enormous empowerment opportunities for his people and trigger the value chain of industrialization in his state. But Aliero has again imprinted his incomparable dedication to people-oriented service in this supposedly no-go area.

Surely but quietly, Aliero is also the pioneering private industrialist on large-scale modern template in Kebbi State by his establishment of the Labana Rice Mill and Agro-Allied Complex in his hometown in Kebbi State which employs thousands of otherwise jobless youths and whose products serve as profit-spinning end-user for hundreds more rice-farming families in the state, apart from generating internal revenue for the state government. With such a record of relentless interest in rendering service to government and humanity, it is a wonder that Senator Aliero is humbly limiting himself to a third term in the Senate while several ambition driven, self-serving so-called political leaders of lesser pedigree scramble for the Presidency!

Daisi wrote this piece from Abuja