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Since the last time I wrote about emergency rule in Plateau when I asked a harmless question “Plateau: Are we practicing Diarchy now?” (SUNDAY SUN July 4, 2004) I have been carrying mixed bag of kudos and knocks. To those who felt that I should have minded my main calling instead of dabbling into Plateau affairs being not an indigene or settler, I recall the following as a preamble to the main menu here.
In September 200 I on a Saturday morning when bellows of smoke from burning tyres, houses, cars, tear gas canisters and gun shots eclipsed the morning sun over the city of Jos. I watched with frustration and suppressed annoyance through a peephole from an upstairs bedroom window youths pull down massive gates and set ablaze houses and cars of distant neighbours. It was no fun. Amid crying children and worried wife as if Armageddon had come, the hoodlum burst into our compound demanding for anything inflammable. In a rowdy and rude manner, they asked for petrol and I told them that I did not store any. One asked for that from car tank and I said I wasn’t sure if! had that either. Miraculously, God blinded their eyes to the lock-up garage directly opposite them. They could have forced it open to confirm the last claim. Unable to meet their demand, they forced yours sincerely in a commanding tone against his wish to offer them cold water to quench their thirst as they were sweating when normal people wore overcoat to ward off Jos cold. Having had their fill they went their away.
That Saturday morning marked the beginning of two weeks of compulsory leave and staying indoors with its attendant role reversal - husbands shopping for households instead of wives. It was like a war situation. What I desire for Plateau State is peace that will endure despite my position on emergency rule. Like other residents, we have had a bellyful of crisis.
Looking back now, it was God that saved the situation. I have always known that many victims of mob action would have lived if they waited to ascertain what was pursuing them before they ran. That was why against very strong urge, I refused to undertake a hazardous drive through convoluted and meandering route to Rukuba Barracks and like a particular rodent (Od;) in a folklore in the part of the country where I come from, I decided that instead of running into the unknown, let the end meet us in our house. If an ad; encounters danger outside or at the entrance to its hole, instead of running away, it runs back into the innermost recess of the hole ready to fight and die. In its wisdom, it is more honourable for a man to be killed in his house than to be killed on the street. It takes courage and God’s guidance for a man to behave like ad; and laugh last in a dangerous situation. But thank God that those cannabis smoking, solution inhaling and alcohol guzzling harbingers of death and destruction of properties passed over our house. But the experience, I doubt if! will forget. Now who says I can’t comment on the affairs in Plateau State?
For residents of Jos and indeed Plateau State, it has been fun galore (comic relief?) since General Alli landed. The airwaves are abuzz with the voice of the general preaching peace. He started out in a coarse manner but has since mellowed down. He may have been reminded that his mandate was not strictly military but a “diarchical” one.
General Alli would do well as a pastor, a messenger of good tidings after his tenure or assignment on the Plateau. Apart from being eloquent and witty his voice is melodious. He receives standing or ‘sitting’ ovation anywhere he goes depending on whether he addresses his audience in a conference room, banquet hall, the staircase or lee of the state secretariat or under a tree. In one such public gathering at Anguar Rogo Nassarawa area of Jos, he held the audience spellbound, and they could not help clapping for him. A predominantly Muslim community, the residents had not seen a state dignitary “from the other side” addressed them in the brotherly manner Alli did in years. Even political rallies in such places were held and kalashinovs. But the General realized that where civil servants were arbitrarily retired, their entitlements not paid and those working owed salary arrears of three to four months, no peace would endure. So while some were still praying that the new man remembers them in the scheme of things long forgotten arrears were being paid. Now salaries are to be paid 25th of every month. Pensioners were warming up to get their entitlements paid as at the time of writing this. The man promised the civil servants that he would look in their direction and he has delivered. But he also warned them (in a military style) to be more dedicated and support his administration. Now workers report at work before the official time.
In the last five years, they have never had it so good. This was the mood when I ran into one civil servant penultimate weekend at a mutual mechanic workshop. I had met this man at the workshop before. He was always a catalogue of complaints, never ever able to pay fully for services rendered at the workshop. But this last time, he looked very bright. More like a man who would dare anything to happen, he was like a father who had fully settled all matrimonial responsibilities before coming to service his car. Those mechanics who hitherto treated him like” a never- do-well” gave his car maximum concentration all because General AlIi had settled his salary arrears and he was reasonably sure that come shine or rain he would get paid on the 25th of the month.
Sensing his mood, I prompted him by “Allah, this Alli is doing well in Plateau State”. Exactly what he needed, he bought the whole discussion over. Going down memory lane, he told us he was at the state secretariat when General Alli addressed the civil servants live. He said when the man promised to pay arrears of salaries, many did not believe him. But to their “sweet shock” less than three weeks later the arrears were paid. He said this was the same salary and arrears that Chief Chibi Dariye could not settle in five years.
In a classical Bendel manner, I cut in jokingly “Alli na talk na do”. He took the expression and reframed it “Dariye na talk na postpone, Alli na talk na do”. All irrespective of status burst into hearty laughter. Anyone who goes to a mechanic workshop on Saturdays knows that it is a complete parliament like the vendors newsstand and this encounter was not different. I have not been entertained on the street of Jos for a long time. Workers especially civil servants always wore long faces with tales of children withdrawn from school, no food in the house because salaries were irregular. But all that has changed in less than four months.
General Alli is not only paying the salaries of state civil servants, I have been told that local government workers owed more than 14 months salaries are being paid. The elected local government chairman discovered that hitherto, they were being short-changed. Now they seem happier with General Alli than with their former boss. They too are wishing that this situation continues uninterrupted.
The general mood on the Plateau now is that the state of emergency has done wonders for the workers and their dependants. General Alli has calmed frayed financial nerves by prompt payment of salaries. Many have paid up debts owed at the groceries, pepper soup joints and drug stores. Long abandoned vehicles are revving back to life. Husbands are gaining back the respect and confidence of hitherto nagging wives. As school session begins in September children hitherto withdrawn from school due to lack of funds are hoping that their parents would repair the broken back of their education humpty dumpty. All of these made possible because salaries are regular. General Alli has achieved everything in the eyes of the workers. He is not likely to arrive at their barricades before his six months tenure expires. But for his successor, time will tell.
Dr. Sunny Orumen Akhigbe is of Specialist hospital Bauchi.
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