Moral Lesson From A Visit To Chief Of Staff To Governor Bala -By Sulaiman Maijama’a

In my life, at different points in time, I have had the privilege of having interaction with different types of people, from different endeavours of life (politicians, business people, academics, technocrats, literature, illiterate, et al). Each interaction comes with a different experience and lesson and each category of people has a given syndrome with which I identify them. To be honest, for politicians, they are people I’m very much sacred of, mainly, because, they are masters of exploitation. However, among them, there are a chosen few, described as Golden Fish or rather God project, who exhibit uncommon behavior, ethically standard, which tends to prove the image i hold wrong. To not keep the readers in suspense, let narrate the story…

On Wednesday evening, last week, I was at the office of the Chief of Staff to Gov. Bala Mohammed, Dr. Ladan Salihu on a courtesy visit, as usual. When I showed up, he was on a phone call and so, he motioned me sit on a sofa by the right in the office. Immediately he hanged up, the fruitful discussion began, as always. Most of his words were, to me, an encouragement; we discussed the poor representation we are tested with, at the federal Chambers, where I told him ” I even forwarded an open letter in Daily Trust to Hon. Yakubu Shehu Abdullahi, on his lackadaisical approach of representation. He said and I qoute, ” Yes I read it. I’m always happy that we have young people like you. You have laid a foundation for a better society. It means our tommorow shall be great.” He said ” your write-ups are superb and extraordinary so. Please keep it up, I appreciate young intelligent people.” He encouraged me on my study and asked me remind him when I would resume school. And you know what it means!

What i used to know and I still do is that, most politicians are more inclined to surrounding themselves with mischievous youth and miscreants who are used as political machines to actualize their political ambitions. The politicians open door for callow youth to come in, in order to use their naivety to get to political power. But, Dr. Ladan turns out to be different, as he is only giving recognition to people who have a dream for a better future. From experience, interaction between politicians and young people, is like slaves and their masters but, my bond with the chief of staff is a father and son type.

As we were discussing, was ‘Asr’ prayer time and one of his secretaries came in and said to him ” sir, anshiga sallah” ,[“prayer kick off”]. I know very well that, subordinates are always afraid of reminding their boses about spiritual duties. But to my greatest surprise, Dr. Ladan was reminded and instantly stood up and went straight to the mosque. Another memorable incident happened in my presence. Madaki, his personal assistant came in, “sir we still have a condolences visit at Makera”. I believe for subordinates to be reminding their boss about spiritual duties, the directive to do that must have come from the boss himself. This bespeaks how morally standard the boss is.

I was about to leave when he offered me a gift book among other valuable items to support my education. A gift of book is a gift of knowledge. This is the best gift I have ever received from any politician, because for a politician to give you book, and support you financially to school, he is indirectly telling you to read and be a responsible person for a better tomorrow. For others, they are interested only in young people who are ready to kill themselves for them (politicians) and their children to survive.

At that moment, I was wondering, thinking long and deep,… Do we still have politicians like this? This is the question I asked myself. These are the type of people we need to have at the hemp of public affairs for a better society.

Maijama’a, Faculty of Communication, BUK
sulaimanmaija@gmail.com