MY CHALLENGES, BY BABAILE ILA, REP

Alhaji Nasiru Baballe ila is a member of the Federal House of Representatives. A son of a renowned philanthropist. Nasiru takes the reporter into his personal life and the journey of his recent political limelight, concluding that he was inspired by the lifestyle of his father, who spent all his life in the service of his people.

Excerpts:
Background
My name is Nasiru Baballe ila. I am a member of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). I am 46 years old, and was born here in Kano, precisely in a place called Darma Quarters, which is within the Municipality.  Sometime around 1970, my father moved to the current Tarauni area, a place called Gyadi Gyadi, and that is where we live today.

We have been here in the last 40 years. I did my primary school in a school called Gandu Nassarawa situated in the current site where the Kano State House of Assembly is located. It is no longer there. I did a bit of primary school there, but completed in two or three schools. I did my secondary school in Government Secondary, Kawaji and then I attended Aminu Kano Community College here in Kano city.

It is from here, in my form two, that I moved over to Egypt . In Egypt , the town is called Alexandria and the school is Victory College . It is a British Colonial School. That is where, I did the equivalent of my Senior Secondary School . From there I moved to London where I did my school certificate examination. I was in a school called West London , where I obtained about three or four different diplomas. My first diploma was in General Studies; my second diploma in Business Administration, and my third was an Advanced Diploma in Business Studies.

When I came back home, that was in 1997, I joined my brother in running the factories. Then, we had huge factories, running in three locations in the state.  That is at Sharada, the second one at Bompai and again, another one in Challawa Industrial Estate. The factory is called Arewa Tanneries, and what it did, was to process and to export leather skins. As at that time, we were one of the biggest players in the sector. So, I would say that, on and off, I have been essentially an independent private person, an entrepreneur per say. I have been mostly concerned with my businesses; I have never worked in the civil service. I have been working as a private person.

My journey into politics
What actually happened is that first and foremost, I will say that I am lucky to have the kind of father that I have; that I come from a family that has been philanthropic in nature. My father has been so generous to his environment and his community. Where ever he could help, he had helped. My father is Alhaji Baba Laila. He is now late for almost 14 to 15 years. What actually happened was that after his death, we discovered that what he did was enormous. He did those things without the knowledge of any member of our family.

So when he died, many people came to us to appreciate his contributions to their lives, and it was from there that we were able to have insight into the extent of his philanthropic activities. You will see people come and say that we have nothing to give but to record our good prayers for him, that he built a school here and there for them, that he did this borehole, a well there, and that he electrified their community. In fact, there is a place where we came from in Dawaki Kudu Local Government Area; he erected the entire town for the people - built brand new houses for almost every body, with different quarters. That place was actually our own origin, the place where our great, great grand father came from. He built the whole place for them. So, my journey into the political terrain was inspired by things like this.

Honestly, his lifestyle often caused me to ask myself the question of what kind of legacy I want to leave behind after I have gone. How do I want my life to end? His life has ended on a very good note, and I will want mine to be like his, even if I do know that I may not be able to equal his achievements in terms of service to the people.  But at least, let me do my own little part to uplift the society, to make life a lot better for my fellow human beings,o that at the end of my life, people will say they are lucky and glad to have met and encountered Nasiru. So, I will say the life of my father is my inspiration and strength in politics.

My vision in politics
Honestly, I must admit that I do not share some of the characteristics of a typical politician, especially the very bad ones. For example, to a typical Hausa person, a politician is a liar, a cheat and whatever is bad. For him, that is a politician. But I must state this obvious fact that I don't have these attributes at all. I am a very straight forward person. If I will do it, I will do it and if I will not, then I will not. My word is my bond. If I will not do it, I will state it clearly. So, for me now to delve into politics, despite these bad assumptions from the members of the society, is purely because I want to emulate my father.

It is very important to state that the problems of our people in my constituency are so enormous that I don't even really know where to start. But essentially, we are faced with a total absence of educational infrastructure in our area. Primary schools, secondary schools and even tertiary schools, you name it, everywhere is yawning for attention. So that is one of the key areas I want to concentrate on when I get to the House.

I want to be able to help the people acquire the wealth of education. This is because if you really want to help somebody, first give him knowledge. With knowledge, he can sort out himself; he will be able to help himself at the end of the day. But if I say that I will give him food or buy motor cycles for Achaba business, the cycles will spoil one day or they may even end with an accidenmt with the motorcycles and at the end of the day kill himself in an accident. So to me education will be cardinal focus. But equally worthy of my strong attention is not only education but power. Industries in Kano are going down and power is the key to survival of any manufacturing industry.  So, I will do my best in seeing that once we go the House, we will make laws that will compel the government to do more in this sector. Maybe, they have given out these contracts in the sector but they are not being implemented, we have to check on them to see which way to remedy the situation.

ELECTION THRILLS AND EXPECTATIONS.
Honestly, I was not surprised at the outcome of the poll. To some extent, I was truly expecting that I will win despite not being in the ruling party or in the party that was t generally as opposition party. The confidence I had was derived from what my father did. Because really if you were here during the elections without anybody telling anything , you will say that Nasiru will win.  Because people were coming out in mass, saying that is the only way they were going to pay back my father for what he had done to them by voting for them. So the challenges I have now are so enormous that really,  I don't think that all other politicians in Kano put together have that size of problems. The expectation is so high, people are expecting me to be  like my father.

THE BUHARI FACTOR
Yes, of course, we must admit that the Buhari factor played a very important role too in my elections. I was so lucky to be in party that General Buhari initiated. That is another factor, but we must also note that there were others, who aspired and contested in the same party who did not go through. Then, you may begin to see that there must have been a value added variable to my success at the polls.