By Abdul Jelil Adebayo
One wonders sometimes whether it is a crime to do ones job and duties putting everything at ones disposal to ensure the best out of every situation. Instances abound when those who put in their best are called names and insulted while those who sit idle by are given accolades for putting spanners in the system..
Ramatu Tijjani Aliyu is the Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory, FCT. She has her mandate and she has proven beyond reasonable cause to justify that she is indeed a round peg in a round hole.. Abuja residents are and can testify about this.
Despite her quite mien and restiveness to meet up with the mandate of Mr. President to make Abuja a worthy capital, wailers and haters of good things are restless looking for what is not missing and heaping them on Ramatu calling spade a name not associated to a farming instrument.
Yes, there are 42 Ministers in the present executive council of President Muhammadu Buhari and each has responsibilities assigned to him/her.
There is no doubt there are some Ministers that are hardly visible while there are very few that their names ring bell at first mention. Ramatu is among the later.
Recent happenings have made tongues to be wagging as mischief makers are having sleepless nights doing everything possible to smear her reputation. The trend now is that everything that goes awry in FCT is attributed to Ramatu.
A consummate and grassroots politician she is, since she was named a Minister, has not left anyone in doubt as to her mission to add value to the administration.
She came hitting the ground running in 2019 taking into consideration her antecedent as the first woman leader of the ruling party, the All Progressive Congress, APC.
She left no one in doubt that she is a grassroots politician and on merit, she was appointed a Minister of the Federal Republic. Even cynics, agreed that she is a workaholic and she has never hidden the facts that she means well for a better and smooth administration of the FCT.
But haters would not let her rest. And this could be seen in the twisted viewpoint she expressed after the recent Area council election in the FCT in which the two major parties in the country, APC and PDP shared the six area councils chairmanship three apiece.
During the presentation of certificate to the chairmen and the 62 councillors in the six area councils, last week, she voiced out her observation about the election. According to her, there was need to address the problem of failure of the Biometric Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) device that usually fails during elections.
She said from what she witnessed during election, many voters were disenfranchised simply because the devise malfunctioned. Ramatu, who was concerned about the need to improve the electoral process, suggested that anywhere the BVAS becomes non functioning, accredited voters should be allowed to vote manually instead of denying them out rightly their right to vote because of the malfunction of a machine.
Haters rushed in and twisted fact upside down and turned the good suggestion by Ramatu to her calling for disbandment of the BVAS and claiming she is calling for a return to Egypt, which is, manual voting pattern.
To the wailers, they seemed to have achieved their objective of tarnishing the reputation of Ramatu, but discerning minds were quick to read between the lines and many faulted their claims knowing who Ramatu a lover of democracy that she is.
As if that was not enough, the six area councils have been placed under lock and keys, courtesy of the National Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE. As usual, some mischief makers have mischievously linked the ongoing strike action embarked upon by members of the FCT chapter of Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), to the FCT Administration.
Specifically, some reports have accused the FCT Minister of State, Dr. Ramatu Tijjani Aliyu, of deliberately refusing to release the allocation meant for the payment of salaries to this third tier of government workers.
Again, the haters have gone to town with the usual news that Ramatu is the reason for the strike by the Union. Unknown to the wailers, as Minister of state, FCTA, the six area councils are under her supervision..
It could be recalled that the workers had staged protests blocking access into council secretariats in all the six area councils over non-payment of their January salaries. Interestingly, leadership of the union knows who is responsible for the non-payment of their salaries
The President of FCT NULGE, Mallam Ibrahim Kabi, had in different fora placed the blame squarely on the doorsteps of the area council authorities.
In his media interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the union leader asserted that, “NULGE FCT chapter in a genuine efforts aimed at amicable settlement of the matter, met with the chairmen of the six area councils on Feb. 16 on the staff salary, and NONE of them is ready to release the January salary. NULGE’s resolutions and stand is that the strike has started indefinitely and there is no sign in sight when it will end,”
With these pronouncements from NULGE leader, one is amazed at the immeasurable phew of the Area Council authorities in conjuring events and hallucinating conversations that the FCT Minister of State is responsible for their woes. They could be best described as an indefatigable genius in dishing out tissues of lies, which cannot stand the test of time.
For many of us who have followed the activities of Dr. Ramatu Tijjani Aliyu, she is a woman of proven integrity, honesty and with sound character, who will not allow the commoners to suffer as she has demonstrated during the distributions of palliative items to residents of the territory.
However, one takes solace in the fact that; “Truth can walk naked, but a lie needs to be dressed at all times”.
In this era of politics, mudslinging should be anticipated, but unfortunately they missed their target of attempting to tarnish her hard earned reputation.
For trying to find a solution by Ramatu, the wailers are crying wolf where no animal was in sight. This brings to question, who is after Ramatu?
*Abdul is an Abuja based journalist