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Dariye back on the battlefield
By Onoja Audu
Jos.
Those who have been living on
the Plateau since the first leg of Governor Joshua Dariye�s administration
till date do not need any soothsayer to tell them that the governorship election of Plateau
State was hotly contested between Chief Joshua Chibi Dariye and the old
order in the state represented by the retired Army Generals who were in
control during the regimes of General Ibrahim Babangida and the late
maximum ruler, General Sani Abacha.
The current drama on the
Plateau that has continued to give Dariye sleepless nights, and that keeps
him awake during the day without having the time to preside over the
affairs of the state might not be unconnected with the governor�s 2003
election victory and how the political positions were shared among the
three senatorial districts in the state. While. Dariye, who hails from
Bokkos LGA of Plateau State, tried to run on open door policy that could
have accommodated many political interests in the state, his party
leadership held him hostage with all manner of demands, including that
each local government must produce a commissioner in addition to special
assistants, which at the last count, went up to about 250 with Plateau
Central where the governor hails from having over 130 special assistants,
who are primarily aides to the governor before the declaration of the
state of emergency in the state on May 18, 2004.
Even though Dariye has been accused severally
of not sitting down at home to face the business of governance, the
over-bearing political pressure that the Mushere chief had passed through
in the hands of Plateau elders to please the power brokers in the ruling
Peoples Democratic Party in the state and the opposition battle against
the governor contributed to a large extent the system collapse in the
state that nearly sent the governor out of the Rayfield Government
House.
Whether the critics of
Governor Dariye agree or not, the six-month suspension of the governor has
taught the state chief executive a big political lesson which calls for a
change in his leadership style, at least if he is to satisfy the more than
60 different indigenous ethnic groups in the state, including the settlers
who also want a share in the state�s political pie.
Dariye, after having concluded
consultations with different segments of the stakeholders in the state in
the last three weeks, and having gotten himself set to begin the business
of running the affairs of his state in accordance to the dictates of his
people, events in the state last week brought cold shivers down the spines
of the governor who thought all this while after his return that the
battle was over.
Since Nuhu Ribadu, the chief
executive of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) took
Governor Dariye to the
Federal High Court, Kaduna, on financial crime allegations last
Monday with a threat to put the governor and some of his cabinet members
in the cooler, Jos, the Plateau State capital, has become a nightmare for
some of Dariye�s close aides as Ribadu men have since stormed the state
capital, picking Dariye�s aides who are on the wanted list of the
financial crime fighters to answer charges preferred against since they
are not covered by constitutional immunity.
Activities at the Rayfield
Government, Jos, last week were at the lowest ebb as Joshua Dariye, like
the biblical Joshua, returned to the battle field, this time around taking
on Ribadu of the EFFC, supported by the awesome artillery mounted by the
Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice and Aso Rock at
the Federal High Court in Jos and Abuja.
While Dariye is holding fort
in his fortified Rayfield Government House compound, Plateau elder
statesmen, such as Ambassador Yahaya Kwande, Chief Solomon Lar and many
others have taken the battle to free Dariye from the gridlock of the
powers-that-be to Abuja and may remain there until an amicable solution to
Dariye�s trials at the Federal High Court, Kaduna, is
found.
As Dariye enters the second
phase of his political battle, having scaled through the first hurdle when
he returned to his seat on November 18, 2004 after six months suspension,
one question some concerned people have kept on asking is had it been that
Dariye was in the good book of the Aso Rock, would he have been suspended
for six-month and taken to the court to face EFFC charges and that of the
Code of Conduct Bureau?
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