Supporters of this extra-ordinary parliamentarian start gathering at his private residence in Akwanga as early as 6am everyday to rob minds and to show solidarity to Honourable Phillip Aruwa Gyunka, a man who has grown to be referred to as the Obama of Nasarawa State.
The surrounding outside space within the residential area of the lawmaker was already seething with activity by 7 am when the gates and doors leading into the living rooms were thrown open on the day of our visit and a sizeable number of people milling about outside trouped into the parlour to await the politician.
As the party supporters settled down, a hot debate ensured about whom among the leading politicians in Nasarawa State can be rated as the people's leaders based on the people-oriented projects executed and their open-mindedness and philanthropic gestures.
Those engaged in the debate knew their subjects enough to engage in the open assessment because they are the field workers of these politicians who are responsible for every grassroots policking that goes on in every community and many of them are known to follow the politicians about on each visit to the rural areas or wards within their constituencies.
In the judgement of the assembled party supporters, Chief Phillip Aruwa Gyunka has excelled beyond every politician in the Nasarawa South Senatorial District in humanitarian activities, women and youth empowerment, upliftment of his constituency through a rigorous implementation of constituency projects.
Some of the projects completed and on-going include seven bore-holes, deep wells, construction of churches and mosques, training of widows and youths and provision of financial empowerment for graduates to set-up businesses and become self employed.
When eventually our reporters met Phillip Aruwa Gyunka and asked him to explain what was behind the successes he recorded which has eluded other politicians and serving lawmakers like him, the unassuming youngman said simply that Nigeria is in dire need of visionary leaders pointing out that the country would look better if such creative thinkers can emerge to occupy sensitive positions of leadership.
Hon. Phillip Aruwa Gyunka who represents Akwanga Federal Constituency and also serves as the Chairman, House Committee on Finance and Appropriation in the Nasarawa State House of Assembly remarked in the interactive session that the problem of the nation's under-development cannot be resolved until highly qualitative leaders who hunger for transformation evolve in the polity to move the country forward.
He defines the type of visionary leaders required in the nation as “those who see their tomorrow, yesterday and use today to plan for it and use tomorrow to achieve the goals,” pointing out that unless one has a vision of what one wants to achieve or where one wants to go, the person might just end up circumventing the entire area aimlessly without achieving anything.
On the quality of leaders the nation should encourage to take up public office, Gyunka said there are leaders who are called just as there are also people who impose themselves on the populace as leader when they do not have the requisite qualification or characteristics for such public office.
Gyunka cited as example the ruling elite in Dubai and the way the visionary leaders there have transformed the city-state into a paradise on earth stressing that whereas foreign tourists now prefer Dubai to European cities and tourist centres making the country's revenue earning from tourism to quadruple, Nigeria cannot even harness or generate enough from all its natural resources put together.
The lawmaker bemoaned the fate of the Farin-Ruwa Dam in Nasarawa State which can be developed to harness sufficient electricity for the state and neighbouring adding in utter resignation that visionary leaders must first identify the needs and expectations of the led and map out ways to actualize or achieve those goals for them in the spirit of service and democracy.
“A qualitative leader must first identify the needs of his people and work towards achieving them for the people. Good leaders should not be measured by the number of houses one has or the number of cars or land one has acquired but by the number of people whose poverty one has alleviated. If we can reduce poverty, that is wealth for the nation. If Farin-Ruwa had been completed, the water would have given us hydro-electricity power which would be enjoyed even by the neighbouring states,” he said.
The legislator confirmed that he has provided about seven transformers; several bore holes, twenty wells and restructured some streams to assist farming in the area and he urged the Federal Government to take seriously the avowed support for agricultural development in the country to make the nation self-sufficient in food production.
Gyunka also called on the Federal Government to take seriously the advise of the Central Bank Governor, Alhaji Lamido Sanusi that the seven point agenda should be reduced to a manageable size for better implementation adding that what matters in the end is not the number of agenda that the government produces but what it was able to put in place before the end of its tenure in office.
He urged the electorate and especially the youths to shun money bags, gossip and sycophancy but to vote into office credible leaders who can move Nasarawa State forward regretting that the state has been left behind by other states that were created along with it in 1996.
On Anambra, the lawmaker advised Professor Chukwuma Soludo to withdraw from the governorship race so as not to stain the good image he built for himself as the Governor of Central Bank.
