November 27, (THEWILL) – It is a pity that some who find themselves in positions of leadership rather than guide their followers on the right path, use the position to deceive and mislead the people.
Like Fela once sang, the VIPs, instead of living up to their name as very important persons choose rather to be vagabonds in power.
With all sense of responsibility, one can say without fear of contradiction that what all the political leadership in Plateau State had succeeded in doing within the last six months is to deceive, manipulate and confuse the people for personal gains.
One had thought that with the shellacking of the contraption that brought the PDP to power in Plateau State, which further exposed its lack of structure and locus to contest elections, the party would at least become sober and in contrition, apologise to the people of Plateau for misleading them.
It is, however, unfortunate to observe that rather than apologise and put its house in order, the leadership of the PDP in Plateau, led by the Governor, Caleb Muftwang, has chosen to continue in chicanery and self-deceit, which manifested two days ago
Following his sack by the Appeal Court, the outgoing Governor of Plateau State, on Saturday, organised a so-called “reception party” to welcome him back from Abuja, a city where he spent an average of four days in a week since he assumed duties as governor six months ago.
This is not to mention the one month he spent in the US holidaying at the expense of the people only to be compelled to return home on the eve of the appeal court verdict on his election.
Even as a non-party member, one cannot help but feel sorry for PDP legislators whom he abandoned to their fate and did not consider worthy to be around to give them moral support while their cases were going on until it was time for his case to be determined.
Happily, this selfishness and lack of team spirit on the part of the Governor has been confirmed by the legislators, who have started avoiding him, starting with the scanty reception he sponsored, which was lavishly boycotted by all PDP leaders of repute.
But to show that he has not been pruned of the delusion, Gov Mutfwang was quoted as saying, according to the Nigeria Tribune of 25/11/23; “We’ll recover all lost legislative seats in Plateau.”
This is the height of deceit for a man who abandoned the PDP legislators to their fate when he could have, at least boosted their morale with his presence but is coming at a time when matters concerning the election have been concluded and therefore irreversible to raise their hopes again. If only he knows that one can fool people sometimes, but not all the time.
As it stands, APC has two out of three Senatorial seats from Plateau with one pending rerun, while at the House of Reps, APC has claimed seven seats out of eight with one pending rerun. At the State Assembly, APC has 20 out of 22 seats, leaving the remaining two to LP and YPP.
Little wonder, the sacked National Assembly members, who lost at the appeal tribunal, realising his selfishness, have since abandoned him, and even his godfather has begun to maintain a dignified distance from him, having realised the kind of person he is dealing with.
That is not all. While the Governor surreptitiously romances the APC government in Abuja, he turns 360 degrees to lambast the party when he returns to Jos with his sustained claim that the APC Federal Government wants to Islamize Plateau State, forgetting that the same propaganda was used during President Buhari’s tenure and the people have seen that it is baseless and illogical.
His acts of deception may have worked during the election when unsuspecting voters were lured into voting for the LP candidate in the presidential elections but the colossal failure of Muftwang since he assumed office has exposed the claim as merely self-serving.
There is more coming in the act of perfidy. The outgoing governor had days earlier joined the chairman of the PDP Governors Forum, Gov Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State, to accept the verdict of the judiciary on the judgment affecting members of the party in Plateau, only for him to return to Jos, stage a protest against the judiciary.
For the past six months that Gov Mutfwang had held sway as the Governor of Plateau State, the state has been left to go to seed with the erosion of notable gains of the past administration.
In terms of security, the state witnessed a resurgence of attacks that has robbed it of the gains of peaceful coexistence and reversed the strides achieved under the last APC administration of Simon Lalong with the support by the caucus of the then National Assembly led by Ahmed Idris Wase, the cerebral former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. The duo had continued to distinguish themselves as nationalists and had brought development through providing development, employment and empowerment irrespective of ethnicity, religion and creed.
At the sponsored reception by the Governor, even the heavens had enough of his failed attempt to denigrate the judiciary, as it rained cats and dogs, dispersing the hired crowd who scampered for safety to avoid the literal consequence of ‘sun kira ruwa, ruwa ya na ta dukan su.’
But the Governor’s double-speak did not start today!
When the judicial fireworks started, the Governor told his pauperized supporters that as a lawyer, he would close the case with just one page of response, but he was forced to assemble a high number of legal luminaries who put up almost a thousand pages of defence but failed to convince the tribunal that the party has a structure.
His claim to be fighting for the “soul of Plateau heritage“ has also been exposed to be self-serving as people cannot reconcile how someone said to be fighting their cause would fire their children from work for no other reason than that were employed by the last administration, irrespective of the fact that they were eminently qualified.
The leaked memo to dethrone the liberated traditional institution who were upgraded by the Lalong administration has further alienated the revered traditional rulers from him and are watching with hands akimbo, in quiet appreciation of unfolding developments.
His party’s supporters, who were promised inclusion despite their religious diversity, tasted the poison of discrimination when the list of beneficiaries of the 500 million naira largesse from the most respected First Lady, Sen Oluremi Tinubu, was released and not a single adherent of other religions made the list!
It has become clear that the youths, who are bearing the brunt of his anti-youth policies, cannot wait for the exit of the one they now call ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ so that they can welcome Dr. Nentawe Yilwada, a professor of ICT and Renewable Energy expert of international repute who is the proponent of Youth-O-Clock in the saddle.
As the clock ticks, the Security Agencies are called upon to focus their gaze on this bull in a China shop, who is resorting to self-help and has relocated the Plateau State House of Assembly to his abode at the Government House in a bid to frustrate the swearing in of lawfully elected members of state parliament.
Rumoured plan to mobilize street urchins to attack the homes and property of the respected President of the Court of Appeal, other judges, APC leaders, religious leaders and even PDP stalwarts that align to lawful authority, should attract close monitoring, as the state awaits the verdict of the Supreme Court that Plateau people and true lovers of peace believe will usher in the administration that will build on the all-inclusive governance and foster peaceful coexistence.
The Judiciary remains an important and cardinal fulcrum of our constitutional democracy, having adjudicated in similar governorship tussles in Rivers, Bayelsa, Edo, Anambra and Zamfara amongst others with the same fairness it handled that of Plateau.
Lady Justitia will strike without fear or favour and do justice to Plateau citizens in a matter of time, as all the facts affirm the truism that ‘Nentawe is coming!’
***Yakubu Dati, a former Commissioner in Plateau State, writes from Jos.*
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