Ben Kalu, Bende Federal Constituency and the Bauchi State Lesson: Why an Asset Should Never Be Traded for a Gamble – By Charles Thomas

There is a hard truth that many constituencies across Nigeria learn too late, while only a handful learn it just in time. Bende Federal Constituency in Abia State stands at that fork in the road today, and the choice ahead should not be taken lightly.

The question is not complicated, even if some are trying to make it seem so. Who currently carries Bende’s name into national conversations? Who has spent enough time in the trenches of the National Assembly to truly understand how the system works, not just how it appears from the outside? Who is quietly securing federal job placements for Bende’s youth, obtaining board appointments for constituents, and leveraging years of established relationships to attract funding to a constituency that was once an afterthought in Abuja?

These are not rhetorical questions. They have answers, and those answers matter more in 2027 than they ever have before.

The Difference Between Sharing Motorcycles and Building Institutions

Across Nigeria, it has become fashionable for federal lawmakers to distribute motorcycles, grinding machines, and sewing machines at the end of their tenure and call them “constituency projects.” It is cheap, it is visible, and it requires almost no legislative skill to pull off. What it does not require is any real understanding of how the national budget is prepared, defended, and implemented.

Bende, by contrast, now has two tertiary institutions to its name. That is no small achievement. Getting projects like these into the federal budget and then ensuring that the funding actually follows the paperwork requires a level of relationship-building, negotiation, and legislative seniority that a first-term or inexperienced lawmaker simply does not possess.

These two institutions alone are projected to create more than two thousand direct jobs, with several times that number in indirect employment once contractors, vendors, transport operators, and support staff are taken into account. Around any functioning tertiary institution, private hostels, eateries, and small businesses spring up almost overnight. That ripple effect is not a promise; it is simply what happens when real infrastructure comes to a community.

Why the Legislature Is a Different Battlefield

It is worth repeating because too many people conflate the two: the legislature is not the executive. A governor or a president can approve funding directly. A federal lawmaker cannot. Getting a project into the national budget and then keeping it funded through multiple budget cycles is a battle against 359 other members, all lobbying for their own constituencies at the same time. It requires influence, relationships built over years, and a deep understanding of legislative procedure qualities that no one possesses on their first day in Abuja.

This is precisely why seniority matters so much in the National Assembly. While experienced ranking members are steering bills through committees and defending budget allocations, newer members are still learning the basic mechanics of how the institution operates.

What Bauchi Learned, and What Bende Should Not Forget

Bende would not be the first constituency to face this choice, and it does not have to learn the lesson the hard way. Consider Bogoro/Dass/Tafawa Balewa Federal Constituency in Bauchi State. Voters there kept faith with their representative, Yakubu Dogara, through multiple election cycles, from his time as an ordinary member to his tenure as Speaker of the House of Representatives. The dividends were not abstract. Dogara personally flagged off federal road projects worth more than fifty billion naira across the constituency, oversaw the construction of new classroom blocks in dozens of schools, and expanded rural electrification to communities that had waited decades for it.

The response from his constituents was telling. A youth coalition publicly declared that its loyalty would follow him wherever he went politically, crediting him with empowering young people and women while building schools and hospitals across the constituency. Local leaders were even more direct: they openly warned that any constituency in the habit of replacing its representative every four years should not expect the same dividends of democracy enjoyed by the people of Bogoro, Dass, and Tafawa Balewa.

That is the mathematics of political continuity. It is not sentiment. It is strategy.

The Choice Ahead

No traditional ruler with genuine regard for the future of his people should want to see that future gambled away on the strength of a Facebook trend or a viral endorsement. The people of Bende have built something with these two tertiary institutions that many older and more established constituencies still do not have. The question in 2027 is whether that momentum will be protected and built upon or handed over to inexperience to relearn from scratch.

Every constituent of Bende who cares about the constituency’s share of the national cake needs to understand what is truly at stake in this election cycle. The difference between an asset and a liability has rarely been clearer.

l