By Edward John Auta
I have been following the campaigns of, and for the various candidates in the forthcoming SOKAPU elections, and there’s no doubt that the election will be a very keenly contested one
However, there seems to be some dangerous rhetoric across camps that need not be left unaddressed. The idea that certain candidates should be considered SIMPLY because they are with a particular presidential candidate or have risked their lives to go get information, or made sacrifices to cater to the needs of the vulnerable or mobilised resources for certain SOKAPU programmes, and so on shouldn’t be the basis for rewarding them with offices in our union. Even Asake did all that and still ended up as a big disappointment.
The SOKAPU election should not be made to look like a reward system to persons for whatever they’ve done during our downtime as thousands of others have also done and are still quietly doing a lot for our traumatised communities.
Yes, what we need from the candidates is whether they have demonstrated the needed capacity for the office they’re aspiring for; the intellectual ability, emotional intelligence, team spirit, and patriotic zeal to handle the demands of the respective offices they’re gunning for, whether or not they have deep pockets.
The ability to lead must be assessed beyond the mundane premises of sacrifice or philanthropy. You can be a good philanthropist, a fearless and passionate comrade, but still lack the basic rudiments of leadership that I enumerated above.
So, if the only reason why we should support you as this or that is your fearlessness or rich history of financial support to SOKAPU or IDPs, taking the risks to visit attacked communities, and writing, or producing materials that tell the story of attacks, or that you have facilitated aid from SOKAPU diaspora or some other sacrificial venture towards the cause of SK, you can be sure of not having my support.
Our delegates MUST do us and the entire SK people a favour by voting for members of EXCO who have the best ideas to lead us out of the woods; who dare to speak truth to power, the emotional intelligence to absorb all manner of pressures, negotiate great deals for us and the traumatised among us, the organisational skills to gather and not scatter, to make and not mar, and the ability to build or be part of a SOKAPU team where every member of EXCO is important, is given the opportunity and support to function and contribute to the struggle.
They owe us a set of leaders who can listen to counsel other than theirs, work with everyone other than their cycle, and collaborate with the government, our representatives, and other Middle-Beltern and Southern socio-cultural groups, as well as international development partners to change our story.
In this regard, I believe in the capacity of Dr Samuel Achie as President, the Reverend gentleman as his Secretary, and any other credible candidate that meets the criteria I have set out above for the other positions, such as Mrs Patience Dodo, Vice President lll, Barr. Ishaya Tanko Damina, as Legal Adviser, among others.
We must work together to defeat every attempt at the monetization of the SOKAPU election, the corruption of the electoral process, and the intimidation of any of us to meet any election or campaign goal. (Myself and a group of other Patriots will be approaching the ELCOM soon to address this concern).
We must be wary of some of the negative tendencies of those we are pushing forward, those who have been threatening fire and brimstone, lest we end up with serpents and scorpions that may end up poisoning the system; causing disaffection and all manner of division, and ultimately leaving the union worse than they met it. God forbid!
It is up to us, but most importantly, it is up to the delegates to make or mar the union. The choice is ours to make.
~ Edward John Auta is a Historian, and passionate lover of Southern Kaduna. He writes from Narom Village, Zonkwa Ward, Zango – Kataf LGA of Kaduna State.
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