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Time to restore Dariye to office
TUNDE OWOLABI
Three months
into the state of emergency in Plateau State, religious, political and community
leaders in the state have mounted a campaign for a quick restoration of the
suspended democratic institutions. The major plank on which they rest the
campaign is the relative peace in the state since last April�s suspension of the
Governor and the state House of Assembly.
The people of the state have taken their
fate calmly without resorting to violence and they feel Abuja should reward
that. Series of meetings and consultations have been held across the state to
work out an appropriate and non-violent way to convey their feelings to the
Federal authorities.
Particularly, the elders, represented by
former governor of the State, Chief Solomon Lar and immediate past chairman of
the board of NICON Insurance Plc, Alhaji Yahaya Kwande insist that though they
believe that the same results could be achieved without resort to imposition of
emergency rule; the state and its people have learnt their lessons. According to
Lar, the country gains if civil authorities are allowed to resolve problems that
emerge in the polity.
He is also of the view that peace could
still have been achieved without the use of emergency rule if the Federal
Government had, as it has now done, deployed more security personnel to the
state, make additional funds available and released helicopters to the state for
security monitoring.
The people of Plateau State wonder why the
big hammer fell on them, while Kaduna and Kano States, regular scenes of ethnic
and sectarian riots, have largely gone unpunished. And their easy conclusion is
that they have become victims of the perceived unjust treatment reserved for the
minority groups in the country.
In declaring the state of emergency,
President Olusegun Obasanjo spared no word of rebuke for Governor Joshua Dariye
whose perceived incompetence and ineptitude was believed to have caused the
breakdown of law and order in Plateau State. He was also dressed in the garb of
an unserious Nero who played the fiddle as Rome was on fire. Not a few
dispassionate observers of Plateau politics disagree with this. Many believe
that if Dariye has any problem at all, it is his obsession with being good all
the time.
In his early days, Dariye was the
Travelling Secretary of the Fellowship of Christian Students, the northern
equivalent of the Scripture Union. He runs the All Nations Gospel Ministry in
his village and once co-founded a church in Gboko in neighbouring Benue State.
Professionally, he headed the Accounts
department of Benue Cement Company, Gboko when the company thrived most and is a
member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria. In all his
locations in life, Dariye demonstrated uncommon goodness towards all that came
his way.
Perhaps one other allegation, which has
being hauled at Dariye, is that he travels out of the country at the drop of a
hat with the implication that public funds might have been ferried out on such
trips. Such allegation can only come from those who do not know Dariye well. A
few years ago, he was shot by robbers on one of his legs. It was by the grace of
God that he survived the incident and even then, he was left with serious
complications, requiring regular attention. Even as a private citizen, Dariye
was a man of means. He therefore traveled every three months to see his doctors.
As a result of that wound, he rarely wears cover shoes till today.
When he traveled before the last crisis,
it was for both medical and official reasons and with the pre-knowledge of the
appropriate authorities. When the riots broke out, he made to return home but
was assured that the situation had been brought under control. Apart from that,
his police aide-de-camp was undergoing surgery, requiring that he tarried to
monitor his progress.
Chief Dariye is a loving person. He not
only preaches love, he practises it and those who have come into contact with
him must notice that attribute. As one of his closet aides once said, Dariye�s
major problem is that he loves too much, he is too tolerant even of his enemies.
Because of his clerical affiliations, many have wondered if Chief Dariye has not
been reading too much of the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians which dwell
mostly on love.
Several factors have joined hands to foist
the current situation on the people of Plateau State. It is very easy to define
the crises in the state in ethno-religious terms. There may be such factors but
they are only just part of the problem. It is unthinkable to say that the
indigenous people hate their Hausa � Fulani brothers. Why would they single out
the Hausa-Fulani for hatred and not the Urhobo, the Yoruba, Igbo or Ibibio who
also dwell in the state? There are more than 100 ethnic groups in Plateau State
and only two of them, the Berom and the Tarok spread across more than one local
government area. For the vast majority of the people Hausa and to a lesser
extent English are the main languages of communication.
In the Jos North local government, 14
councillors were elected in 1999. Of these, only six were indigenes of Plateau
State, the remaining nine being Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa. That could hardly be the
trend if the local populace hated outsiders. Also in 1979, a Hausa/Fulani man
contested election with Hannatu Chollom, a Berom woman of substance, and the
Hausa man won the election in an area populated largely by the Berom.
Three major factors are responsible for
the problems on the Plateau and unless things are viewed from the proper
perspective, we would just be chasing shadows. Number one of these factors is
the inability of those who contested the primary election with Dariye in 1999 to
accept their defeat. In anger they went into other parties and those who
remained in the PDP became like outsiders fanning the embers of discord in the
party. For this group, it is better to scatter what they do not get. Some of
them have been heard boasting that they would make Plateau ungovernable. They
are those who have ganged up against members of the rival All Nigeria Peoples
Party (ANPP) to demand an elongation of the period of emergency rule. Many of
them who have called the shot for decades in the state find it hard to accept as
governor, an independent minded young man who has none of them as godfather.
There is also the so-called Langtang Mafia
to contend with. Since the creation of the state, generals from Langtang and
their civilian compatriots have held sway in the State. Perhaps the Langtang
area today has more retired generals per square metre than anywhere else on
earth. When they were in power, they pulled along their cronies. Many
appointments in state and federal institutions went to them. Every military
governor of Plateau State was once either an aide-de-camp or military assistant
to one general or the other. In fact, the Interim Administrator of the State
now, Maj-Gen. Chris Mohammed Alli, was once military assistant to General Domkat
Bali, a foremost Langtang general. Many of these people cannot accept having as
governor, a young man who comes from a hardly-known ethnic group of less than
100,000 people.
Also, there are certain members of the
National Assembly who wrongly feel that they have not been adequately consulted
in the running of the state. Specifically, a prominent senator is known to have
complained openly that he was not given enough slots in the state executive
council and in the dissolved caretaker committees of the local governments.
These are the elements that have gathered
to foist a needless atmosphere of chaos on Plateau State. For many, the aim
simply is to get through the back door what they could not get through the
ballot box.
On Dariye�s part, quite a few lessons must
have been learnt that on issues of security and information management, there
should be no assumptions henceforth. It would also appear that more bridges of
understanding need to be built and the goodwill of the elders of the state
adequately harnessed.
It is time to set up a forum of former
governors, Speakers, Ministers, Secretaries to the State Government � something
akin to the National Council of State which advises the President.
On his part, Dariye has demonstrated good
conduct even in the midst of adversity. Apart from pledging his continued
loyalty to the President, he went ahead to hand over to the administrator,
displaying no bitterness at all. And his followers seem to have taken the cue
from him.
The imposition of emergency has achieved
its purpose. Peace has been restored and confidence built among the people. The
nation needs to move on. The President should do the next right thing today. He
should lift the state of emergency in Plateau State and restore Governor Joshua
Dariye to office. Then all the wounds of the past will heal.
�Mr. Owolabi, a teacher, sent this piece from Jos
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