SENATOR JIDE IPINSAGBA & THE YOUTHS
As the African proverb goes, “Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.”
Until Senator Jide Ipinsagba or any of his aides tell the tales of what the Senator has done, his doing and will do for the youths, the public perspective would always be that he is doing nothing. However, this is far from the truth.
Senator Jide Ipinsagba’s ideology according to the biblical verse he believes in is that *what the right hand does in terms of good, the left hand need not know about it.* But this is politics, the right hand should not only know, the left leg right leg should also know for people talk and spread rumors and “alajẹ́sẹ́” are much in people. We have persuaded him to let the general public be aware of the dividend of democracy he gives to an individual or group.
To mention but a few, immediately after he won his primary election, he disbursed bursary. The bursary almost caused a dispute between the Committee and National Congress of Àkókò Students (NACAS) because the latter felt they were not given a sense of belonging in the distribution of the bursary. Recently he procured 600 Jamb forms for 600 students in Ondo North Senatorial District. He didn’t stop at that he went as far as empowering some youths who have a feasible business plan with substantial amount of funds as start-up.
More interestingly, some of our youths, benefited from Niger Delta program that took place few weeks ago at Auchi and at the moment, he is sponsoring some youths with their tertiary institution fees.
Some party leaders and excos are enjoying him but refuse to come to his defense because he himself didn’t want that to get to the public. Meanwhile we have all of these names on record as well as receipts.
The public is aware of these but the perspective of him being a billionaire is misleading some of us.
Constitutionally, as a Senator, a public servant, he has to stay away from his private business. Alas! Some of our youths want him to be Senator and at the same time, Chairman of his company thereby dipping hand into the treasury of the company to fund the yearnings of his district. Well, private business organization and public service don’t work that way. He should be cut some slack if he is not dipping his hand into his company’s treasury.
However, as a public servant, criticism is inevitable but it should been done constructively devoid of sentiments and personal vendettas, that way our leader would sit up and do the right thing at the right time.
Conclusively, we plead with our senatorial district youths to exercise some patience as it is a form of wisdom which demonstrates that we understand and accept that things would unfold in its own time.
We have almost concluded plans on engagement of the youths and the Senator with *The Youth of Ondo North Senatorial District* (an arm of Ondo State Youth Network – OSYN) taking the lead followed by Àkókò Youth Forum (AYF).
Thank you all for your understanding and God bless.
Mallam Farouq
SA on Youth and Students Affairs.
