A few days ago, there was a facebook notification that propped up on my timeline: a facebook user reported how the Senator representing Oyo Central Senatorial District in the Nigerian Senate, Senator Yunus Akintunde, decided to support a lady mechanic, Cargirl, with tools needed to ease her work.
The tool was presented, as reported, after the Senator watched a report on TVC News, while he was in the United Kingdom. In its face value, this is a gesture that should be commended, as the tools, if utilized properly, would no doubt help her in the course of her trade.
However, it is ironical, that the Senator, having spent 3 years in the National Assembly, have little, or nothing to show, especially when it comes to the responsibilities of a lawmaker, with respect to lawmaking, oversight and representational, except tokenism. It is ironical, that Senator Akintunde could visit the United Kingdom, see how an average Mechanic is well equipped with tools to aid their trade, but would have to wait until a reporter highlight the struggle of the lady, before thinking of supporting her with the required tools needed to aid her work!
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Beside the tools given to support Cargirl, which is still commendable, it should be an opportunity for the Senator to reflect on what he has done and the things he has left undone, while serving as a member of the Senate.
The documentary, if at all he learnt anything from it, should make him reflect on what has happened to our technical institutions and what can be done, to ensure that people of the senatorial district, in particular, benefitted from the recent revival of technical and vocational education by the federal government of Nigeria.
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Rather than turn the support to a political philanthropy show, he should use the opportunity to develop a bill that would lead to the establishment of more technical schools within the senatorial district, encourage our young ones to focus on technical and vocational education, and ensure that they are well equipped with all the necessary tools that would make their job done a easy as possible.
For a proper context, the senatorial district he represents; a district with 11 local governments area, has just 1 government technical school, that was established immediately after the country’s independence. While I am not sure of the current state of the school, there is no doubt that we need more of those schools across the state, and by extension, the country. This should be what should be paramount in the mind of the Senator right now, and not a photo-ops, because he gave tools to the lady. He should rather be concern about how to institutionalize that kind of gesture, so that another Cargirl would not depend on the benevolence of a public office holder, and he would have etched his name in history!
Senator Yunus, a pioneer in the field of energy economics in Nigeria, should no doubt be a trailblazer in championing developmental changes in Nigerian politics. It is however a shame that there is no significant contribution that the people of the district could point into, that makes him different from those that have been in the same office before him!
