By Augustine Aminu
The article titled “Kogi East and the Politics of Selective Amnesia” by Kenneth Akoji is less a defense of Senator Jibrin Isah Echocho and more an elaborate public relations exercise desperately attempting to whitewash years of underperformance, broken promises, and disappointing representation in Kogi East.
What the writer failed to understand is that citizens do not judge leadership by lengthy newspaper lists of boreholes, empowerment handouts, and budget proposals. They judge leadership by visible transformation, economic improvement, quality representation, and the real impact on their daily lives. On those critical indices, Senator Jibrin Echocho has failed Kogi East.
The greatest irony in the article is its repeated celebration of projects that are either ordinary constituency obligations, abandoned, duplicated, politicized, or grossly insignificant compared to the scale of suffering and underdevelopment in Kogi East.
No serious region in Nigeria today measures effective senatorial representation by counting boreholes and distributing tricycles. That is not transformational leadership; it is survival politics designed to keep people permanently dependent while poverty deepens.
For nearly a full term in office, what truly strategic legacy project can Senator Echocho confidently point to across Kogi East?
Where is the industrial revolution promised to the people?
Where are the functional road networks that connect communities and stimulate commerce?
Where is the aggressive legislative advocacy that has translated into major federal presence in the district?
Where are the sustainable jobs beyond politically-selected beneficiaries?
Where is the coordinated regional economic agenda capable of lifting Kogi East from chronic underdevelopment?
These are the real questions the article conveniently avoided.
The writer attempted to overwhelm readers with a flood of project mentions, yet many of those projects remain either incomplete, poorly executed, or too insignificant to reflect the massive federal allocations and political influence available to a serving senator. In many communities across Kogi East, residents still battle collapsing roads, poor healthcare, youth unemployment, insecurity, epileptic electricity supply, and worsening poverty despite all the noise about “visible interventions.”
The truth is simple: Kogi East has not experienced the kind of aggressive, people-oriented representation capable of matching the district’s enormous political and economic potential.
Instead, what citizens have witnessed is media-driven politics where every borehole becomes breaking news and every empowerment programme is packaged like a national achievement.
A senator’s responsibility goes beyond sharing motorcycles and installing solar lights. Leadership requires vision, courage, influence, and measurable development outcomes. Unfortunately, Senator Echocho’s representation has largely revolved around tokenism rather than transformation.
The article also exposed a dangerous mindset common among some political defenders — the belief that citizens should remain eternally grateful for basic amenities funded with public money. Public office holders are not doing communities personal favours by facilitating projects; they are performing constitutional duties financed by taxpayers.
Therefore, criticism of elected officials is not “bitterness” or “propaganda.” It is democracy.
Attempting to silence dissent by branding critics as “anonymous propagandists” only reveals intolerance for accountability. In fact, the growing dissatisfaction across Kogi East is not manufactured; it reflects genuine frustration among citizens who expected far more from someone entrusted with representing one of the most politically strategic districts in Nigeria.
The claim that Senator Echocho facilitated jobs into federal agencies also deserves scrutiny. Public employment opportunities should never be presented as personal gifts from politicians. Furthermore, isolated appointments for a few individuals cannot substitute for broad economic empowerment and sustainable regional development.
More importantly, the repeated reference to motions and bills without corresponding implementation highlights another weakness in the senator’s record. Nigerians are tired of ceremonial motions that generate headlines but fail to produce concrete outcomes. What matters is not how many motions were moved but how many lives were truly changed.
Even the projects highlighted in Odu unintentionally expose the poverty of expectations imposed on the people. After years of representation, should communities still be celebrating ordinary boreholes and classroom blocks as monumental achievements? That alone reflects how low the standard of leadership has fallen.
Kogi East deserves representation that can attract major federal institutions, modern infrastructure, investment opportunities, industrial clusters, agricultural value chains, and sustainable economic growth — not endless political advertisements centered around handouts and scattered constituency projects.
The harsh reality is that Senator Jibrin Echocho has not provided the bold, visionary, and impactful leadership expected from someone occupying such a powerful office. The district remains largely underdeveloped, economically weak, and politically underutilized despite the enormous opportunities available at the federal level.
No amount of emotional writing, political grandstanding, or defensive propaganda can erase the growing public perception that Kogi East has not received commensurate value from its current representation.
History will not judge leaders by newspaper articles written in their defense. It will judge them by the condition of their people.
And today, across many parts of Kogi East, the people are still waiting for the true dividends of effective leadership.
*Aminu is President General, Volunteer Media Advocacy for Accountable Leadership
