Transformational leadership is the trending leadership character used for campaigns. However, no more than a handful of Nigerian leaders can claim to have a true understanding and application of this approach. But Yusuf Gagdi, the lawmaker representing Pankshin/Kanam/Kanke Constituency of Plateau State in the 9th National Assembly has flipped over the table, demonstrating how a committed heart and a willing mind can grind out the dividends of transformational leadership.
It has been a while since a member of the National Assembly rattled the imagination with a flowing stream of accomplishments. But this is exactly what Gagdi is doing daily. Even so, outsiders are having trouble grasping how a first-term lawmaker has been able to embody the true character of the legislative office. After all, the legislature is a craft fraught with innumerable enticements and cajolery.
For those learning about Gagdi for the first time, his reputation is more golden than any other active member of the National Assembly. Currently, he has sponsored seven different bills, all of which he developed himself. Among these bills, six have been accented to by President Muhammadu Buhari on account of how sound and practical they are. Although the 7th Gadi-sponsored bill is yet to be accented to, he is on record as the only member of the legislative arm of government to have so many approved bills while in his first term of federal lawmaking.
Gagdi’s bills say something about him. Four of them have to do with the founding of tertiary institutions: two Federal Universities in Plateau and Delta states; one Federal Polytechnic and one Federal College of Education, in different areas in Plateau. Another Gagdi-sponsored bill is related to fixing up some of the gaps in the Police Act, thereby making it more equitable, inclusive, and collaborative. Another bill is related to our ports and waterways, resulting in the establishment of the National Hydrographic Agency to accurately chart these waterways. The last bill helped to establish the Maritime Security Trust Fund, effectively granting a special fund held in trust for the Nigerian Navy.
By all indications, Gagdi’s bills are both extensive and inclusive, touching areas seldom considered paramount. Moreover, the lawmaker’s emphasis on the establishment of tertiary institutions indicates the premium he places on formal education. In this respect, he shares a similar attitude to American educational reformer and politician, Horace Mann, who said that education is the great equaliser of the conditions of men and the balance wheel of the social machinery.
Beyond bills, Gagdi has made significant contributions to infrastructural development, especially in his constituency. For example, it is on record that he built 28 units of classroom blocks in 28 different locations, 14 modern primary health care units, three decent police posts, 2,100 units of solar street lights, 264 hand pumps and motorised boreholes, six town halls and skill acquisition centres, and 23 roads, to name a few. He has also erected 24 palaces and corresponding offices for traditional officials with each costing an estimated N100 million.
In the event that Gagdi might be accused of favouring loud achievements over things that directly benefit the common people, the lawmaker has also been instrumental in employment-related developments. The best examples of these are his distribution of 1,618 motorcycles, 80 tricycles, and 118 cars to several youths in his constituency; procurement of modern Hilux vans for the local police divisions; and the payment of WAEC, NECO, and JAMB fees for secondary school students amounting to hundreds of millions of Naira. And all of these are just a tip of the Gagdiiceberg.
One thing that Gagdi shares with others in the same position is a lack of consciousness of ethnic or religious discrimination. He does not even consider an illiterate to be less of a human being compared to a formally educated person. To him, privilege is something available to all, if not now then later. And so, fairness is the default mindset of Honourable Gagdi in his approach to other people.
