Natasha may have veered off the road to El.dorado: She may fall as in Shakespeare's tragedies

By Gomina MJ (doctor)

There is no iota of doubt that the senator representing Kogi Central in the National Assembly, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, is a cynosure of eyes in the Nigeria political landscape. The senator ate a liver of a lion and she is a lion in the last political battle. She showed this powerfulness on the political trajectory that shot her to stardom. She was a resistance in that battle of wits in the electoral ring where she knocked down her opponent with shrewd uppercut. The Iron lady has been replicating the perceived hereditary nobility at the Upper Legislative House. 

The senior legislator is standing as a fulcrum of voice for the womenfolk in the uneven gender representation of Nigeria society. She has endeared herself to the admiration of people across the senatorial divides of Nigeria. 

As a member of opposition party in the upper house, her oposing and proposing contributions to debates, motions and bills are always with centripetal force piercing the thick wall of the numerical strength of her elite APC colleagues. This has brought fame amongst her legislative peers. 

The senator has made a giant strides in communities across Kogi Central. In human capital development: provision of pipeborne water, educational grants, financial grants to traders and marketers and boasting micro agro-economy through provision of agriculture incentives: fertilizers. In infrastructural development: installation of street solar electricity and others

She has also taken up her party financial responsibilities: carrying PDP chieftains along, and empowering party members. 

While these efforts speak volumes and be put in echo of praises in our admirable political firmament, we cannot feign sycophancy when she seems sailing in catastrophic management of ferrying her people across a white sea. We must express our constructive criticisms to lower her egotism to the lower level where enviable leadership is reflecting (that was springboard that pushed her to the echelon of power). The arrogance and egotism that is embedded in sweetness of power has killed our leaders politically. So it is high time she swept away slippery peels along her way 

The senator has not shown pluralistic approach in handling some of her legislative responsibilities in her constituency. This makes her fixated wrongly and she may lost her footing and tumbled down the ladder from the apogee of leadership. 

One of such flaws that irked many people including yours truly was her visits to some institutions in her constituency including Abdulazeez Memorial College among others. She announced-in spectacular appearance- to spend a chunk of her constituency allowance to upgrade the lower institution(AMCO) simply because her father graduated from there. One needs to look at this critically! Is she in right frame of mind? Of course, it is a good move for that matter: to pay a homage to the educational heritage that had put her father on a pedestal that in harvests graded her in geometry achievement. But there are other schools in Kogi Central which need more attention of our amiable senator. Those schools are in worst conditions and crying for oxygen. Some of those schools had similarly produced great people like her father (of blessed memory). 

This fallout has made other schools feel shortchange. They are seeing a stench of irresponsibility in all of that. They have lost confidence and trust in her ability to make sweeping decisions that touch their schools

What that means: She has veered off the area of a moral compass not in equilibrium on how to spread benefits among educational heritages in her constituency, which gave best education backgrounds to so many sons and daughters of the land. She is ingloriously planting a bad seed that will lead to calamitous precedence. 

Another daughter can get such level of (public) political privilege tomorrow and decides to focus on a particular school because she is connected to there. What of other schools. Bad precedence. 

All the schools in Kogi Central need Natasha's attention. Giving attention to just the secondary school where her father attended over others in Okene during her first visit to schools was in not in right frame 

In another political quagmire, the Queen of Ebiraland may set herself in a collision course if it is true that she has engaged in vicious infighting with some leaders in her party. It is crystal clear that  arrogance is injected into leaders in the corridor of our power. She need antidote to cure herself from the devil in the corridor of power. She has to retrace her step from making enemies even in her Okehi home; a case of A.K Salihu is something in the rumour mills. 

Natasha may be thinking she can use her power of incumbency and connections in the party to win a second term; this is far from reality in view of how political glories were buried before their natural burials. A majority of our political elite in Nigeria are wearing this blindfold and doesn't think in this direction; not seeing the swinging pendulum of politics. 

Political is a work in progress. Natasha is a rising star in our political firmament. But the political sky on which the star smiled, that time, is now becoming filled with unbearable fog. Her flight should not be ill-fated; unless she can borrow the eye of the eagle to pierce the obstacles and move on; Unless she is a Natasha in eagle jackets to fly through the thorn in the thunderbolt to her silver lining. 

Having attended the same school and schooling in the same class: Christ the King Nursery/Primary School, Okene, I am positioned to see that she doesn't fall from cliff like former arrogant leaders .In that regard, I am, yours sincerely, calling on her to put on her thinking cap: Let her holds town hall meeting in the local governments in Kogi Central to show her stewardship. Let her relates well with people and leaders in his constituency. Let her uses wisdom, not to create enemies for herself when dealing with matters that concerns Ajaokuta Steel Company.

Gomina MJ is a public commentator, a poet and novelist.