Plateau: Aides Raise Alarm for Dariye
From Ahamefula Ogbu in Abuja
The Lawmaker representing embattled and suspended governor of Plateau State Chief Joshua Dariye at the House of Representatives, Hon John Adamu Longhor and some of the suspended Commissioners in the administration have raised alarm that the Federal Government wanted to tie the restoration of democratic rule in the state to the governor's resignation.
They alleged that the request was a way of extending the emergency rule slammed on the state, warning that should the Federal Government hide under any cloak to continue the emergency rule, there may be no alternative than for the electorates to react which spells mayhem.
Longhor said that information at their disposal showed that some political scavengers in the state have been holding clandestine meetings with some people in government where the view that the governor should be asked to resign as a prelude to the suspension of emergency rule in the state.
"There is an attempt to force Dariye to resign. You may have heard that the President invited some Plateau elders and some politicians and we hear that he wants to force Dariye to resign and hand over power to his Deputy. The people who want extension of this emergency rule are yet to do anything to help the state out of its political problems,
"If the meeting is called to force Dariye to resign, the Plateau people will not allow that. They are giving the President wrong information. The reason the state of emergency was slammed on the state was because of the crisis but it seems there are other cards and that is to take power through the back door, which is dangerous.
"I am calling on the President not to make the mistake twice. He should restore the governor, the deputy and all other democratic institutions affected by the State of Emergency," he said.
Also speaking at the same forum, suspended Commissioner of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Mr. Aminu Adamu Zing said the problem in the state was not a religious but a political one.
According to him, those who wrestled for power with Dariye and lost were the ones behind the problem, which he said has manifested in the call for the governor to handover power to his Deputy, which is an entirely new dimension to the problem.
He sees the move as an attempt to take power through the back door or get what they could not through the polls. He said the crisis started in Jos and spread to Shendam and Yelwa, adding that Dariye was not from any of those places so that punishing him for it would be injustice.
"The problem of the state is not religion and Dariye is not responsible for it. Unfortunately, emergency rule has come to stay so that even as relative peace has returned, they do not want to restore democracy. There is even information that if the emergency rule is not extended, there will be protests. These are sponsored protests and the security should be on alert on these.
"Even if they want to remove Dariye, they should follow due process, return democracy to the state, and then use the State Assembly to impeach him but not to apply any extra legal means to remove him. If democracy is not restored, the crisis that will follow will consume everybody", he warned.
Zing said that he was not holding brief or making excuses for the governor, as the likely effect of the problem the latest scheming would bring may portend more problem that has already been witnessed.
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