By Muhammed Jamiu Adoke
Last week, I condolled on the dastardly act of terrorism that took place in Jos, Plateau State. In line with my determined mission of not only condemning bad leadership but also appraising positive deeds and minds across the country, today’s edition of my series “Youth Voices, National Choices” focuses on the achievements of a 51-year old Nigerian business mogul.
There are men who are shaped by ambition, and then there are men who are shaped by purpose. Alhaji Yakubu Ibrahim Adoke belongs firmly to the latter category. Born on the 7th of November, 1974, in Adavi LGA (the heart of Kogi Central), this son of Ebiraland has journeyed through the corridors of private enterprise(s), international diplomacy, agriculture, construction, and community service to emerge as arguably the most prepared, most connected, and most authentic candidate the people of Kogi Central Senatorial District have had the privilege to consider in a generation.
Leadership, at its finest, is not a performance, it is a philosophy lived out in daily choices. Those who have observed Alhaji Yakubu Adoke closely will testify that his leadership instincts are not rehearsed for campaigns; they are woven into the fabric of who he is. He eats from the same plate as his workers. He does not photograph those he has helped. He disdains the weaponisation of poverty, the handing out of arms to thugs that has become the dark currency of political mobilisation in Nigeria. Instead, he invests in the most durable form of empowerment; education.
The young men and women he has sponsored through tertiary institutions are not statistics in a political brochure, they are living testimonies, productive members of the Ebira community whose transformed lives speak louder than any manifesto. A leader who empowers minds rather than mobs is the kind of leader a suffering people desperately need.
Resilience is the quiet currency of great leaders, and Alhaji Adoke’s political journey has demanded a great deal of it. He has contested the primaries for the Kogi Central Senate seat at multiple attempts, enduring the disappointments that come with a political terrain where money, deceits and manipulation often triumph over merit.
Yet, rather than grow bitter or retreat into obscurity, he has continued to invest in his people, his community, and his convictions.
In 2015, after losing the primaries, he did not abandon those who had campaigned with him. The vehicles and motorcycles he had provided during the campaign, he gifted some and sold the rest to his supporters at remarkably low prices, empowering them with assets even in the moment of his own political setback.
That is the mark of a man who campaigns not for ego, but for the people. A man like this does not merely endure, he grows, and in his growth, his people grow with him.
Nigeria has a cruel way of testing its entrepreneurs, and Alhaji Yakubu Ibrahim Adoke has not only survived that test but has passed it with distinction. As Chairman and CEO of Baumasters Project Limited, Managing Partner of Tierfeld International Limited and Triakosia TV, and Managing Director of Yaks & Yara, he has demonstrated the rare ability to build and sustain multiple enterprises simultaneously.
He is a farmer with over 10,000 palm trees in Kogi Central; a feat no other son of the region can claim. He has acquired 50 hectares of land in Ajaokuta for cassava farming, and is currently constructing a processing factory that will produce garri at scale, making a staple food more affordable for ordinary families in Kogi Central.
He understands something that career politicians rarely grasp; that development is not declared in speeches, rather, it is built, planted, processed, and delivered.
Before the coming of Senator Natasha, one of the most crippling weaknesses of Kogi Central’s representation in the National Assembly has been the isolation of its senators, men who arrived in Abuja wide-eyed and overawed, subservient to colleagues rather than equal among peers. Alhaji Yakubu Adoke is the antidote to this syndrome. He has travelled extensively across Europe, North America, the Middle East, and West Africa, not on government trips, but as a private citizen conducting business on equal terms with the world.
He served as a consultant to the Nigerian Embassy in Athens, Greece on investment opportunities, and has been a consultant to Schwarz Druck GmbH, a German company with over 110 years of excellence in security printing. He is the first Nigerian to partner with Ahmadu Bello University in the production of animal forage.
A polyglot, he speaks Ebira, English, Hausa, Greek, and German languages. When a man like Alhaji Yakubu Adoke walks into a Senate chamber, he does not arrive as a supplicant, he arrives as a statesman!
In a political culture that celebrates excesses, Alhaji Yakubu Adoke is a refreshing anomaly. By his own description, he is a minimalist. Building houses and acquiring luxury vehicles are not the metrics by which he measures his life’s worth. He considers his numerous estates not to be trophy displays, but business enterprises driven by practical vision.
As a man of faith, he operates from a disposition of contentment and divine trust, believing that what is destined will come to pass. Yet this spiritual grounding does not make him passive, rather, it makes him purposeful. He has a traditional title in Benue State, conferred by the Tiv people who named him Mule Nmguabaza, meaning The Shelter.
That a man from Ebiraland could earn the deep trust of another ethnic community speaks volumes about his humanity, his integrity, and the universal appeal of his character.
Senator-ship in Nigeria is too often treated as a destination rather than a responsibility. Alhaji Yakubu Adoke understands it as the latter. He has already identified the water crisis across the 52 wards of Kogi Central as a priority that must be tackled within his first year in office. He speaks with urgency about the need to build a major commercial hub in Kogi Central, a strategic market that could leverage the region’s unique geographical position between Nigeria’s north and south to attract trade and generate wealth for local communities.
He understands that infrastructure drives commerce, commerce drives employment, and employment drives dignity. These are not slogans, they are the convictions of a man who has spent decades building things with his own hands and his own money, and who knows that governance, too, must be built from the ground up.
The Ebira people of Kogi Central have long been described, perhaps uncharitably but not inaccurately, as a community whose political leaders arrive on the national stage without the networks, the confidence, or the vision to truly serve their constituents. The average senator from the region has been an insider to his locality but an outsider to power in Abuja, but absent from the corridors where decisions are actually made. Alhaji Adoke breaks this mould decisively.
He is not merely qualified in the academic or professional sense, eventhough he holds a BSc in Political Science and a Master’s degree in International Affairs and Diplomacy from Ahmadu Bello University, one of Nigeria’s foremost institutions. He is qualified in the rarest sense; he has the networks, the humility, the track record, and the vision that Ebiraland’s story demands. His candidacy is not simply a political opportunity, it is a historic corrective.
The 2027 general elections represent far more than a routine exercise of democracy for the people of Kogi Central Senatorial District; they represent a crossroads. The path of familiar mediocrity stretches in one direction, lined with politicians who have mastered the art of promising without performing. In the other direction stands a man whose entire adult life has been a preparation for this moment; a farmer, a builder, a diplomat, a businessman, a philanthropist, a man of faith, and above all, a servant of his people. Alhaji Yakubu Ibrahim Adoke does not need the Senate to validate his success, No! He needs the Senate to amplify his service. Ebiraland does not need another controversial senator who will be swallowed by the National Assembly.
It needs one who will make the National Assembly take notice of Kogi Central on the light of industrialization. That man is Alhaji Yakubu Ibrahim Adoke. The time is now. The choice is clear. Ebiraland, seize your moment. May the sun shine tomorrow…
