Dabiri-Erewa: A worthy legislator -By Femi Odere

By virtue of her trade then as a newscaster in the nation’s main electronic media (NTA), Abike Dabiri-as she was then known- probably carved for herself an image that the Nigerian public was at liberty to interpret in so many ways. As a TV personality, the Nigerian public probably saw her with different lenses whenever she appeared in their living rooms to deliver her message.

By plunging herself into the foul, if not nauseating waters of Nigerian politics, the member representing Ikorodu Federal constituency, Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa has managed not only to mitigate the debris that Nigerian politicians characteristically throw into the country’s political pool, but has also made notable efforts, through her contributions to debates and legislations, in reducing the stench in the political waters as well.

Nigeria’s lower chamber has 390-odd legislators, some of whom may have found the hallowed chamber so discomfiting, if not intimidating (or both), that their colleagues could have sworn never to have seen them before. Some of these legislators may even be unknown in the constituencies from whence they came, let alone be familiar to that segment of the Nigerian public interested in the business of legislation, for they exist in relative obscurity. They could not say anything because they saw nothing.

Dabiri-Erewa, in her twelve-year stint as a member of the Second Estate of the Realm, has proven to be a legislator of distinction not only in terms of performance but in character and integrity.

Her contributions to the deepening of our nation’s nascent democracy as a result of the many bills (some of them unprecedented in the nation’s history) that have become the laws of the land either authored by her or co-sponsored are bound to become points of reference for many years to come. Her contributions to issues of national importance at plenaries can be so passionate that one is left with no doubt that she’s being driven by the values that shapes her being as well as her acute awareness of how a nation must be the protector of all her citizens wherever they may be.

As a chairwoman of the House Committee on Diaspora, Nigerians in the Diaspora have come to see her as the conscience of the nation because of the seriousness with which she takes and reacts swiftly to the unfortunate circumstances that befall them either as individuals or as a group in their host countries.

A very proactive legislator, one must not hesitate to mention here that one of the greatest disservices that a nation’s legislature must not do to a critical mass of her citizenry (Nigerians in the Diaspora) is the vacillation of this Seventh Assembly in signing Dabiri-Erewa’s Diaspora Commission bill into law before she finally takes her leave in May 2015. But her place is nonetheless secured in the legislature of the Fourth Republic.

While the news that the legislator from Ikorodu, of her own volition, would not be presenting herself for re-election took Nigerians by surprise, judging from their reactions in the social media, I only smiled. On learning about her decision, I spoke gently to myself, and said: “This woman is so true to herself,” mentally recalling a discussion I had with her almost two years ago at the Oriental Hotel about 2015.

One who’s true to oneself has no other choice than to be true to the entity s/he is serving at any given period. That was the lesson that the universe drew for me to learn from with the news. Nigerians on the social media could not understand why such an effective legislator with very high approval ratings was calling it quits. Others simply thanked her for her decision.

Dabiri-Erewa’s refusal to seek re-election in 2015 because she wanted to give someone else the chance to contribute and rise in the business of nation building fundamentally attests to her character – and character, as they say, is what you do when no one is looking.