PLATEAU ASSEMBLY CRISIS: HOW SOME PLATEAU ELITES, POLITICAL TURN-COATS AND ETHNIC BIGOTS EXPLOITED THE GULLIBLE.

PLATEAU ASSEMBLY CRISIS: HOW SOME PLATEAU ELITES, POLITICAL TURN-COATS AND ETHNIC BIGOTS EXPLOITED THE GULLIBLE. 

The recent impasse at the Plateau State House of Assembly may be cooling down with the new Speaker Rt. Hon. Yakubu Sanda and members loyal to his leadership settling down for Legislative business, having relocated to a temporary facility at the Old Government House Rayfield after the main complex of the Assembly was vandalized by hoodlums allegedly sympathetic to the impeached Speaker Rt. Hon. Abok Nuhu Ayuba. 

Of course, the journey to the current state of affairs was not without a running battle between the two camps in the House and the active support of their followers and sympathizers. At the peak of the controversy, political maneuvers, innuendos, inconsistencies, blackmail, hide-and-seek, betrayals, accusations and counter-accusations, emotional blackmail, nocturnal meetings and every act of political gymnastics was at play. 

While the former impeached Speaker Abok found comfort hobnobbing in the arms of PDP minority in the House (those who should naturally be opposed to him and his Party APC, under normal democratic practice), the new Speaker Rt. Hon. Sanda had solid support from members of his party (except the two who for reasons best known to them chose to gang up with the minority PDP). Apart from defending their party and the interest of the State, those who impeached the former Speaker believed that the former Speaker had abused his privileges by not living up to expectations and his time was up. Unfortunately, some of those who signed the petition for his ouster developed cold feet in the face of threats and blackmail that they have been vehemently denying their roles. 

While the arguments were going back and forth as to how many people impeached the former Speaker and for what reason, the matter became intensely partisan with whipping up of sentiments even in the public space attaining ridiculous levels. The PDP members and their supporters (with active collaboration of some disgruntled APC traitors) who all along are believed to be using the erstwhile Speaker to get back at the APC for using its internal wrangling to deal them a blow and have a smooth sail at the Local Government elections, soon took matters to the next level shouting blue murder and projecting the rhetoric of "democracy in danger" at every given opportunity. 

They fumed and foamed on various opposition sponsored radio stations and the social media, inciting and castigating the Governor and the APC as well as anyone who disagreed with them in the public arena, in and out of the State. They even went into places of worship to report the Governor and alleged that he was behind the travail of the former Speaker. The pulpit, lamentably, soon became a major tool of the opposition to maim and malign the character of the Government and their party without getting to the root of the issues. They went to the National Assembly to recruit PDP Legislators (including a former Governor with woeful democratic antecedents who is currently battling recall from his constituents and is known to always seek safe haven in Plateau State) to do their failed bidding. Even YIAGA Africa was deceived into addressing a press conference over a matter they had little to no facts about. In fact, a certain former Senate President who was politically demobilized in his State, joined the fray and forgot his infamous game of betrayals that he hoped young and inexperienced Abok will replicate on the Plateau. Now he knows better, Plateau is not Kwara! In the ensuing tirades, no one courageously approached the Judiciary to seek to compel those who impeached the former Speaker to prove that they followed due process. They did not even care to simply approach the Clerk of the House to clear their doubts. 

But in all the ding dong of arguments, some members of the Plateau elite, mostly of the PDP extraction, took their hypocrisy to unbelievable levels just in a bid to get political relevance and probably appeal to public sentiments for their 2023 political dreams. They came up with sterile-minded concepts and make-believe theories that are neither cogent, verifiable nor sustainable. For example, they were very voracious in preaching that Abok was under attack for "standing with the people of Plateau State" and challenging the Government over insecurity. 

When asked to explain what the above assertion meant, they couldn't. The big questions are: who are the "people" in question? What does “standing with the people" entail? Is there any politician who is elected not to stand with the people? Is the legislature not part of Government? Abok was elected speaker because APC had a majority in the House, or was it the Minority who jettisoned their members to elect him? When did he detach himself from the APC members and shifted allegiance to standing with PDP minority members? Has he decamped or is he just brazenly biting the fingers that made him and committing anti-party activity of the highest order? How does the demand by elected Members of the House of Assembly to the former Speaker to render account of monies collected from autonomy implementation become an offence or an attack on his person and the opposition minority? Was it not justifiable for the members to demand that the former Speaker reconvenes the House after over three months of shutting it down without any reason? Was it not justifiable for members, particularly the majority ruling party to let the impeached Speaker know that they are aware of his clandestine meetings with the opposition PDP, with whom he had entered into a marriage of convenience for personal and selfish reasons the past couple of months? Does he expect loyal Honourable Members of the APC to allow him pull the rug off their feet even when many are way above him in age and political experience? 

The opposition elites who are very knowledgeable about the running of the legislature rather chose to play to the gallery, ignoring the fact that Governor Lalong was the first to grant full autonomy to the House in Nigeria and could not in any way determine how they ran their affairs. In any case, having served as the longest Speaker in the history of the Plateau legislature, he knows the fact that leadership of the House is at the behest of the members who choose “a first among equals” to lead and can remove such person if he fails to do the needful. It is not his business to determine who is removed and who is elected Speaker. 

Again, these elites who have a history of democratic rascality, supporting impunity, lacking in integrity and often regular visitors to various anti-corruption agencies, all of a sudden decided to take the public on a roller coaster of lies and manipulation, hoping that their ignoble roles in the past will not be remembered. They forgot to come to equity with clean hands and shamelessly raised their soiled hands pointing desperately at the Government and the Governor, wishing to do him serious political damage. It has certainly not worked as their plans continue to crash like a house built on sand despite the huge amount of monies collected from their sponsors across the country. 

The grand master of deceit and immediate former Governor Jonah Jang even came out smoking and instigating the people, vowing to lead a protest if the impeached Speaker was not reinstated. When he was reminded of his tainted democratic credentials and that for the remaining part of Plateau happenings, he will continue to have date with history and accountability, he quietly went back into his cocoon with his tail tucked tightly between his legs. He is not alone in this mischievous game, but full of some political amateurs and bigots from the opposition PDP. In these people, some of whom claim to be legal champions, one could see an apparent and embracing display and representation of a band of overzealous political clowns that hobnob with the impeached Speaker, Abok. 

Lately, the mischievous roles of some irrelevant, fast-fading politicians on the Plateau are coming to light. In a recent display of flip-mindedness and uncouth analytical mindset whose reasoning hardy goes beyond the roof, subservient and unprincipled politicians like Edward G. Pwajok, SAN have been championing the retrogressive thoughts of some of these political amateurs. In Edward Pwajok and his ilk, one could see the Voice of Jacob but the hand of Esau whose antics have been under the spotlight. We expected him as a former Member that Represented Jos South/Jos East in the House of Representatives and now a Senior Advocate, to provide good counselling by embracing the Biblical adage of “Let us start our journey together that it may lead us to trust, hope and peace.” Rather, he indulges in the contrary. 

Stories of his political travesty as characterized by directionless and lack of focus have led him into changing political parties impulsively, such as APP, DPP, PDP, APC amongst several others. The latest of such political shamelessness is his rush back to the PDP from the APC after his woeful defeat at the Senatorial primaries, thereby putting his followers in a state of confusion. This is a development that has still left him as one of the politicians without even the least support base. Several background and fact-checks at his Kuru Ward of Jos South LGA have continued to reveal this fact, in the face of which we stand to be contradicted. 

Before he fools the gullible, let us remind him that we cannot easily forget his several assaults against the tenets of democracy in Plateau State. It is curious to see some Plateau elites including Pwajok who, as a famous opposition lawyer, championed and defended the removal of Governor Joshua Dariye by 6 members of the House, now shouting at the top of their voices that the removal of Abok was a travesty. Thus, Plateau people can recall how Barr. Edward Pwajok as the then Attorney-General of the State became the enfant terrible who, in 2006, under his watch along with certain anti-democratic forces in the State and beyond, caused the wrongful impeachment of a sitting Governor by 6 out of 24 members of the Plateau State House of Assembly, until it was annulled by the Supreme Court. This politically unstable, egocentric and erratic fellow has, in his usual self-seeking posture, picked up a new strategy of attracting attention to himself certain dramatic and theatrical displays that are confounding. Let the people go to the Court and check those who defended Hon. Mike Dapianlong and his team that illegally impeached Rt. Hon. Simon Bako Lalong and Governor Joshua Dariye, and eventually lost the case. Today, they are junketing all over the place raising Abok as their saviour. 

Others continued to carry on deceiving the gullible and making their supporters feel good with the "Abok must come back" gospel, using the social media where they hyped the disgraced and fallen Speaker and his opposition cohorts as defenders of democracy. Not once did they ever ask the embattled former Speaker to answer the allegations against him. They also never advised the impeached Speaker and his suspended comrades to seek legal redress for the alleged injustice. Rather, they maximally charged on the media and pushed the limits on incitement and campaign of calumny, propaganda and misinformation. Little wonder, they have succeeded in making him a “social media Speaker” while the House has moved on, including his famous spokesman Hon. Philip Dasun who has since crawled back home begging profusely. 

They also forgot that they applauded and celebrated not only the “removal” of the then Rt. Hon. Simon Bako Lalong as Speaker, but vehemently defended the declaration of his seat and others vacant, including his recall, which failed. Today, they are parading themselves as saviours and champions of democracy and are busy fooling the public. Unfortunately for them too, in a make-believe stunt, the gullible, ignorant, exuberant and inexperienced former speaker Abok thought he could impeach both the Governor and Deputy Governor simultaneously among other things. Only he knows how he would have pulled out this joke of the century with the longest serving Speaker as Governor and an erudite Scholar who was Vice Chancellor when Abok was still in secondary school as Deputy. 

It is rather unfortunate that these opposition elites think they can always pull the wool over the eyes of the Plateau people and go scot-free. Their double standards, inconsistency and hypocrisy continues to shock the discerning and those who know their history. If not, one cannot help but marvel as those who challenged up to the Supreme Court (KARIBIKIM VS. EMEFOR(2009)14 NWLR(Pt.1262)602), the fact that Jos belongs to the Anaguta, Afizere and Berom and got the final verdict of the court,  could suddenly return singing different tunes. We can vividly still recall how as Attorney-General, Pwajok sought to ridiculously give a misleading interpretation of the landmark judgment of the Supreme Court because it did not favour his ethnic group. 

Pwajok, incensed and driven by bigotry, desperately sought to turn such reality on its head. He embarked on this futile exercise, notwithstanding the unethical implications of such professional misadventure. In fact, the serious bashing Barr. Pwajok received by Supreme Court judges for his outrageous display of professional incompetence during that saga remains a rather sad commentary on the legal practice in this country. The dire consequences of such unholy attempt by Pwajok on the already fragile peace between the Berom, Anaguta and Afizere were then better imagined than experienced. One also will not then wonder that this same person turned back and sued the Plateau State Government for bestowing a First-Class Chieftaincy stool on the Anaguta Chiefdom by the Lalong Rescue Administration. Are they blinded by ethnicity, religion or desperation for political power?  

Even when the former Governor Jonah Jang relocated the House of Assembly to a corridor at the Government House for a "supposed" renovation, his then Attorney-General Pwajok, who has suddenly found his voice today to make allegations against the new Speaker and the Government, was very okay with such undignified relocation and humiliation of the members. What manner of hypocrisy and double standard is that? Very soon, the details of how the so-called renovation contract was given to cronies of the former Governor and his family members and left abandoned after collecting millions will be opened to the public. 

At the heels of his recent bluffs and macabre dance in the print and new media, Plateau people are being refreshingly reminded of his conspiratorial role at every opportunity, to the embarrassment of well-meaning and patriotic men. He is a known bigot who is always ready to mortgage his people for the purpose of grandstanding. He is certainly one son of the soil in whom we are not proud of and who has not written his name on the marble of political and public service. 

What is even more unfortunate is the fact that the elite (including direct beneficiaries) in Plateau have failed to give credit to Governor Lalong for his forgiving heart and political maturity that saw him paying the owed entitlements of former legislators which the former Governor swore not to touch. Even former Commissioners of the Jang administration were only paid by the current Governor Lalong who is humble, compassionate and puts Plateau first before any other interest. Many also have the audacity to ask what projects Governor Lalong has executed, despite knowing fully that he inherited many abandoned projects with monies already collected and completed them. When they ride smoothly on the Mararaba Jama'a - Secretariat Junction Road for instance, they pretend to forget the nightmare motorists faced using the one lane that was abandoned by the previous administration. 

For the records, and for interlopers to leave APC alone, an inquest into these political elite political antecedents show that they are replete with tendentious ideological inconsistencies and bizarre ego-trips. We are, at this point, quick to point out their inglorious political journey especially between 1999 and 2018 during which, in a fit of mood-swings, many had to jump from one political party to the other in a manner that has continued to portray them as one of the most vagrant and itinerant political aspirants in the State. 

It is high time the elites in Plateau State, particularly those of the opposition stock, stop the ungodly deceit, manipulation and incitement of the public and face reality. The truth is constant and cannot be changed. If there is anything that Plateau State needs now, it is the boldness of the elite to educate the people and desist from taking advantage of them through manipulations, couched and masqueraded in religious and ethnic veils. We should all remember that Plateau has no heritage of irrational militancy, intolerance, ethnic bigotry and parochialism. The cosmopolitan nature of Jos and most of our Cities are a Testament to that fact! The good people of Plateau State should therefore beware of some prominent Refugees and Settlers from other States who are striving hard to instill in our people a spirit of extremism, intolerance, rebellion, chaos and deception   under the guise of advancing or protecting Christianity.  While such dangerous people will use the resulting Crisis to continue to reap Grants from their foreign sponsors and backers, they will succeed in painting Plateau as being perpetually crisis- ridden. Such a perception will drive away badly needed Investments and the accompanying employment opportunities from our State and aggravate the unemployment situation of our youth and Children. Plateau is greater than any individual. 

Let's always think and act Plateau. 

Let's always think and act Plateau. 

Comrade Iliya Mark, JP

Chairman 

Comrade Tina Dabak

Secretary 

For: Rescue Monitoring Team.