George Akume: A round peg in a round hole for SGF
16 May 2023 |
3:33 am
It is no longer news that Bola Tinubu is the president-elect of Nigeria and a countdown to May 29 is in earnest, when he shall take the oath of office as the sixth democratically elected president of the nation. It
It is no longer news that Bola Tinubu is the president-elect of Nigeria and a countdown to May 29 is in earnest, when he shall take the oath of office as the sixth democratically elected president of the nation. It is worthy of note that the election of Asiwaju is historic in the annals of presidential elections in Nigeria.
He was elected a senator during the aborted third republic by the military junta of the late General Sani Abacha. Tinubu also championed the restoration of democracy in Nigeria through the instrumentality of the defunct National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), alongside other compatriots, who believed democracy is the right government for the people. Upon the return of democracy, in the country in 1999, the president elect joined a conserved liberal Pan-African party that was called Alliance for Democracy, AD.
Consequently, he was elected the governor of Lagos and due to his superlative performance, he was reelected in 2003 and he completed his maximum constitutionally allowed two terms of four years in 2007. Despite leaving the Alausa House, the Jagaban continued to build bridges to cooperation, understanding and above all – progressive ideologies that were orchestrated to move Nigeria forward.
This culminated in the formation of the Action Congress (AC), which transmogrified into the Action Congress of Nigeria (CAN). In 2011, the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (CAN) became a force to reckon with in Nigeria. Many progressive ideologues in Nigeria embraced it. In North Central Nigeria, one of the proponents of this progressive ideology was His Excellency, George Akume. It was on this platform that he was elected a senator for the second time as a member of the seventh Senate.
He was equally made the senate minority leader, a position he held till he became a minister of the federal republic of Nigeria. In Benue State where Distinguished Senator George Akume hails, in 2011, he did not only deliver his senatorial district to the ACN but through his influence, the party won many seats in the House of Representatives and Benue State House of Assembly. By this time, he was not only the leader of the party in Benue State but north-central Nigeria.
In 2013, Senator George Akume was one of those that sacrificed their ambition to join hands with the outgoing president, Muhammadu Buhari and the incoming president to form the All Progressives Congress, APC, a merger that is seen by many as the best political decision ever taken in the political sphere of Nigeria. It was this merger that gloriously wrestled power away from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) after 16 years beginning from 1999 to 2015.
While the party won at the centre, Senator George Akume was reelected for a third term. In addition to the above-mentioned feat, he delivered Benue State to the APC. Out of the three senatorial districts in Benue, APC won two and out of the 11 House of Representatives seats, APC won seven, and out of the 30 constituencies of the Benue State House of Assembly, the party won the majority seats.
Even in the face of daunting challenges, Senator George Akume continued to provide the desired leadership needed to keep the party intact, especially in Benue. Even after the party lost some positions in the State in 2019, Akume was not deterred as he gathered the remnants and painstakingly built them into a virile opposition that has never been experienced in Benue State as evident in the just concluded election in 2023.
The APC reclaimed its governorship position through Rev. Fr Hyacinth Iormem Alia, Ph.D. who won the election by landslide. The party also won two senatorial districts, ten seats out of the 11 House of Representatives seats and 21 seats out of the now 32-member Benue State House of Assembly. Apart from the excellent state result in favour of the APC, Benue State also through the influence of Senator George Akume, gave Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu more votes than any political party during the presidential election.
Over the years, George Akume, an alumnus of the Nigerian premier university, the University of Ibadan, has demonstrated camaraderie with the president-elect by providing the desired support to nurture, shape and advance progressive politics in Nigeria. George Akume, who since 2019 has been a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in charge of Special Duties and Inter- governmental affairs has unambiguously demonstrated that he is a team player, reliable and has consistently had his eyes fixed on moving Nigeria forward through progressive politics.
An analysis of the foregoing shows that George Akume has served Nigeria at all levels of government, that is local, state and federal. He has been a lawmaker and an executive too, revealing that he has operated in two out of the three arms of government namely legislative, executive and judiciary. It is based on the aforementioned that a group, All Registered APC Support Groups (ARAS-G) in Benue State is routing support for the minister’s appointment as the SGF. The group believes that for any task to be meticulously executed, one needs not just a team but one comprising people who share the same vision and ideology.
Consequently it is being hoped that upon the inauguration of His Excellency, Bola Tinubu as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the choice of Senator George Akume as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, will be fixing a round peg in a round hole.
The group’s coordinator, Jacob Nevkaa says: “It is an incontrovertible fact that George Akume, the certified management expert from the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria shares in the vision of the incoming president – and with the astute administrator as the SGF, the formulation and execution of government policies will be smooth to progressively move Nigeria forward as he has both capacity and capability to serve Nigeria in the position of the SGF.”
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