Senator Barau Jibrin (CON), is a Nigerian politician and member of the 9th National Assembly from Kano State, Nigeria, who got recently re-elected for the 3rd consecutive time to the red chambers and, as the most ranking senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he leads in the aspiration as to who becomes the next senate president at the 10th Assembly.
Barau Jibrin, married and blessed with many children, is a native of Kabo Township, Kabo Local Government Area, Kano State.
Senator Barau Jibrin, born in 1959, holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting, a master’s certificate in financial management and pricing, a master’s certificate in management, and a Masters of Business Administration (MBA). He also holds a certificate in financial management for business decisions from the prestigious Cornell University in the United States.
After his initial higher studies, the Senator worked briefly in the accounting department of the Kano State Foundation before he resigned in 1992 to begin his flourishing private business with vast interests in the manufacturing, insurance, and construction sectors of the Nigerian economy.
His success in the private sector prepared him adequately to begin a process of championing the cause of his people through the instrumentality of politics.
In 2017, Senator Jibrin was bestowed with the award of Northern Senator of the Year by the Nigerian Senate Press Corps. In recognition of his several contributions to national peace, unity, and development, in October 2022, the exemplary Senator Barau Jibrin was decorated with the Nigerian national honor of Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON), which was conferred on him by President Muhammadu Buhari.
During the 1999 national assembly elections, Jibrin’s passion for his people inspired him to contest the election as a member of the Federal House of Representatives in Tarauni Federal Constituency of Kano State, which he won.
In 2015, Senator Barau also contested and won election to the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, representing Kano North Senatorial District under the platform of the All-Progressives Congress. In 2019 and 2023, respectively, he also returned to the red chambers.
While in the House of Representatives, he served as the Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations. He was also a member of the House of Representatives Committee on Power during that period.
As a serving senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he was appointed Vice Chairman of the Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) of the Senate and subsequently became the Chairman of the same Committee.
On July 20th, 2016, the then Senate President of the 8th Assembly, Dr. Bukola Saraki, reshuffled the leadership of senate committees, and Senator Barau Jibrin was reassigned to the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETfund as the Chairman of the Committee.
Additionally, to his Senate portfolio, he is a member of the Committee on the Niger Delta, Industries, Land Transportation, and Appropriations and plays a key role as the secretary of the Northern Senators Forum. On October 3, 2019, he sponsored a bill: Federal Polytechnic Kabo.
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The emergence of Barau Jibrin into the legislative arm of government both as a member of the House of Representatives and as a distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria brought renewed hope and a fresh outlook to the constituents of Tarauni Federal Constituency and Kano North Senatorial District, as the people attested to experiencing what true representation at the hallowed chamber entails.
Jibrin’s passion for public service and exceptional style of representation is one that endears him to the people, and that has made him open to valuing the input, ideas, and feedback from his constituents and also empowering them to seek clarity in gray areas and be briefed on his activities at the National Assembly.
This approach made it very easy for his electorates and Nigerians to rate his performance in the areas of his achievements, constituency projects undertaken, awards delivered or on-going, bills sponsored, contributions made as a chairman or member of committees, and his prospective plans, etc. Such redefinition transformed the general reality of his constituents, who were once impoverished, pauperized, and vulnerable because of non-transparent and poor representation, into a now well-informed, prosperous, and productive people that enjoy the dividends of exceptional representation from the red chambers.
After his four years of service as a member of the House of Representatives, he promptly returned to his private business, but not without sustaining his interest in the political engineering of his native Kano State.
Mr. Jibrin was once Commissioner of Science and Technology in Kano State and, in later years, served as the chairman of Kano State Investment and Properties Ltd., a company wholly owned by the Kano State Government.
He was appointed in 2001 to serve as a member of a committee set up by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to review Nigeria’s budgetary process. In 2009, he was appointed by the Kano State Government as a member of the Kano State Business Incentive Committee, a position with which he acquainted himself credibly.
In the race to lead the 10th Assembly, Senator Barau Jibrin stands out as the most qualified and highest-ranking member, considering his personal antecedents in public service and contributions made so far in the red chamber.
In the just-concluded 2023 presidential elections, Senator Barau Jibrin was part and parcel of the individuals that contributed to the successes recorded by the APC.
In Kano State, his political party, the All-Progressive Congress, garnered over 513,000 votes, second only to Lagos. Constituents and electorates from Kano’s north senatorial districts, where Senator Barau Jibrin comes from, delivered over 200,000 votes, that’s nearly half of the entire Kano State vote.
Analyzing the number of votes garnered according to geo-political zones through his rigorous 2023 political campaigns, the North West region, where Jibrin comes from, delivered the highest amount of votes for the All Progressive Congress, much more than the South West zone, which is the zone of the APC President-elect. The North West delivered 2.7 million votes, while the South West brought in 2 million votes.
Senator Jibrin’s home state, Kano, contributed over five hundred thousand of these votes; the majority of these votes came from Barau Jibrin Senatorial districts. He is the only candidate in Kano State who was not swallowed by the Kwankwasiyya Tsunami. The Kanawas cannot afford to lose him and the APC for anything because of the unprecedented giant strides that he brought to them as a senator.
Senator Jibrin, who is widely known to be a unifier, has a potent mission to bring to the discussion table the North-South-East-West national assembly members within the senate, cater for everybody’s interests, unite the senate, and drive the agenda of the new administration.
His commitment to apt progressive leadership will deliver to the 10th Assembly a less rancorous, less confusing, and less controversial Senate president. He commands so much respect amongst his people, his peers, and his colleagues at the red chamber and brings tremendous value both to his party, the APC, the nation, and his region in the northwest. He is the only senator with a proven track record of serving remarkably and exceptionally in running the Senate businesses and chairing the appropriation committee that drives the success of the APC government.
There is no other senator in the North West or across the country with a strong personality that is as qualified as Senator Barau Jibrin, and this, he believes, stands him out as the most preferred aspirant to pilot the affairs of the 10th Senate.
As a high-ranking senator from the North West, if given the opportunity to lead the 10th Senate, will tame the tides and possibly bring to an abrupt end the rise of a certain movement called the “Kwankwasiyya Movement,” which seems to be doing a lot to see that they expand their tentacles across the North West zones. And the same North-West zone of Nigeria has always given his party, the APC, the highest number of votes.
Senator Barau Jibrin, according to several reports and an INEC declaration in the just concluded 2023 National Assembly election, defeated the same Kwankwasiyya movement inside Kano State with his eccentric expertise deployed in the North West, craftmanship in driving excellent politicking, and passion to build a government of national unity. He plans to apply the same approach to ameliorate all of the nation’s fault lines, once he emerges as the next senate president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
As the June inauguration for the members of the NASS draws closer, senator elect Barau Jibrin could well be on his way to the topmost seat with the massive support gotten so far by Nigerians and many of his colleagues at the red chamber.