By Saint
The B4 constituency is represented by Rt. Hon. Samuel Igbareto a.k.a. Gandoki, the Speaker of the Zik Hall Legislative Council. Responses from his floor members comprised opinions of those who were impressed with his leadership and those who gave instances to buttress their opinions that he simply wasn’t doing enough.
Awareness
Israel in B58 responded affirmatively to his awareness of the identity of Gandoki as the floor rep for B4 constituency. Austin from B65 also corroborated this. When asked of Gandoki’s awareness as floor rep by members of the floor he said, “I don’t think you will ask anybody on this floor and even one person will say they don’t know Gandoki.” Baba Benji from B 67, Joshua from B68 and an occupant of B72 who prefers anonymity all gave affirmative responses to the awareness of Gandoki to his floor members.
Accessibility
On accessibility, Israel (B58) said “on a scale of 100, I’ll give him 90.” Austin (B65) spoke glowingly of Gandoki’s accessibility by stating that “We did not need to approach him, he always come to us to see if there’s any issue. In fact, there was a time the roof in my room had issues ad he told the porter and they got it fixed. He used to go around and ask do you have any issue.” Baba Benji (B67) shared the same sentiment. He said, “The last time we had light issues on this floor, he went round to ask people that were affected. My room had socket issues but he came and he asked about it and go it fixed.” Joshua (B68) also commented positively. “Yes, he’s very reachable. When we had issues with our light he was always reporting to the porters” he said.
An occupant of B72 who craved anonymity however had a different opinion of Gandoki’s accessibility. He said, “If we should call him he will act as if he wants to show but later he won’t. When our light was not working perfectly we reached out to him as the floor rep. He was like I will help you tell someone, for like three days, I will help you. He’ll say we should wait for him that he is going to get back to us. After almost a week I had to go to the porters myself to lodge my complaint.”
Maintenance of Facilities
Israel (B58) was again affirmative on Gandoki’s activeness in the maintenance of facilities. Austin (B65) provided some instances where Gnadoki made maintenance efforts on his floor. “When we resumed, he tried allotting. He told us to contribute but I guess people did not contribute so everything just died down” he said. Austin further added that, “Although at a point all the toilets were padlocked but later people broke the padlocks and messed the place up.” Baba Benji (B67) said, “This is Nnamdi Azikiwe hall. He has been trying his best but there are still some goats among us. He has been trying his best, even in the kitchenette with proper monitoring he has been able to keep the place clean.”
Joshua (B68) was however not impressed with Gandoki’s maintenance efforts. He remarked, “The toilets on this floor are so bad so I can’t say he is maintaining them effectively.” The anonymised occupant of B72 shared Joshua’s thoughts. He said, “To me I’ll say he is not working enough as a floor rep. If you notice it’s only this wing that we don’t have external lights. And also our toilet is really bad and smelly. I am not impressed at all”
Gandoki’s Reply
Gandoki, B4’s floor rep and Speaker of the House reacted to the opinions voiced by his floor members. With regards to the light issue, he said, “Whenever the light has issues I make reports to the porter’s lodge almost immediately. If you check the electrical record at the porter’s lodge you will notice this and I do follow ups too. And I try to explain to them to bear with me but they think that I am the one that will come and fix it. Some of them understand while some of them don’t. I try as much as possible to let them see that it’s not my fault because what I am supposed to do is report at the porter’s lodge and do a follow up.”
“About the messy toilet, even if I am trying my best some people, I don’t know if they are my floor members or not, they’ll make sure that the toilet are messy. There was a particular day that I got into the toilet and I found three toilets unflushed. I made sure I personally flushed them all. Another challenge is that the toilet doors are bad. And since resumption I told the Hall Warden personally. On the left wing only three doors are in good condition. My initial plan was to get them (floor members) to contribute money to buy padlocks but because of the bad doors that could not work. And the cleaners are always complaining. Some of them will defecate and put it in nylons or dustbins and there is water.”
