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Plateau Crisis, Mix of Ethnic, Religious, Economic Factors - Hon. Nuhu Poloma

Vanguard (Lagos)
INTERVIEW
May 28, 2004
Posted to the web May 28, 2004

What is your opinion on the crisis in plateau state?
Actually the crises in Plateau or anywhere else in the north is not really
based on religion as people think. It is based on ethnic to some extent,
politics to some extent and the struggle for economic control to some extent.
How would you explain that?
I will explain that this way. Let us take a typical example. During the
colonial era, Plateau was more of a mine area and everybody from the north
moved into Plateau because of mining and working with the European miners. The
indigenes were not partaking too much in those activities and some citizens
became wealthier as a result of trading. You know most of these people are
traders. I can only bring the Igbo situation here.
The Igbos, when they move into an area, they become successful traders and so,
they become a source of envy to the indigene of that area. When in politics, or
in what ever control of community and society, economy plays a big role. Those
that are economically vibrant always control the economic and political
situation of an area. Now, situations are changing. Some people have gone into
government either by employment or appointment and becoming economically
powerful too.
So, struggle starts because everybody wants to take political control of the
area and this type of eruptions occurs. It is difficult to control this type of
situation because the people that partake this rampage and wanton destructions
are not the enlightened group. The enlightened group may motivate them but they
are the illiterates and area boys. An area boy is not bothered whether you are
a Muslim or Christian, he is interested in what you have acquired.
He want to take it and enjoy at that particular time. so, anything there is
this eruption, those things set in and start destroying and killing. Once they
go into it, they become difficult for anybody to control them, it is when the
crisis in the north; (I will not limit it to Plateau now) is struggle for
control of political power and control of economy. During the first republic,
it was not like this simply because the late Sardauna, when he became the
Premier of the north, brought in everybody into his government whether you are
Tiv man, a Christian or Muslim.
He encouraged people to take key positions irrespective of your ethnic or
religious affiliation in the north. Examples are, in Sardauna"s government, we
had people like George Okorie who was a Christian and an Igbira man and
chairman of ports authority. We had Michael Audu Buba from Plateau who was a
Christian and minister under Sardauna"s government. We had people like Ubaro
from Benue who was a minister in Sardauna"s government. There people I am
naming are Christians.
I don"t need to name Muslims because the north is predominantly a Muslim area
and the Sardauna himself was a Muslim. We had people who were Christians and
were given good positions in Sardauna"s government. Jolly Tanko was our Consul-
General in London, a key appointment by Sardauna. Majority of us; even Gen.
Jalo. Bisala and so on were encouraged to go into the Army by Sardauna and they
became very powerful people in this country and they were all Christians.
People like Gen. Danjuma and others became important in the government of that
time because the then Head who was a Muslim did not care what you are as long
as you are from the north. Subsequent government started deteriorating,
bringing their own stuff to lord it over others and now resistance came in and
these crises are now becoming a big problem for this country.
Why is it that the security agents are not able to curtail or even predict
these crises, so that they can be able to handle them?
What is the strength of the police in Nigeria? The police in Nigeria, even by
international standards is still not enough to control this country. Next to
that; these crises take place in various parts of Nigeria, if you move police
to Plateau, move them to Kaduna, Kano, Bauchi etc, what is the strength of the
Nigerian Police? How equiped are they to handle these type of crises? If you
bring in the Army, the Army are trained in a particular manner for war
situation; not to quell communal crises per se. Every soldier is trained for
war situation. For him to be moved in, as far as they are concerned, they are
fighting an enemy. You saw what happened in Benue and other places. That is
their training which is to fight the enemy.
You said Sardauna brought everybody into his government. Is it not an opposite
of what is happening now, don"t you believe that these things are happening
because the present government is not taking care of everybody?
When you say this government, which state government? If you have Plateau state
government and you have Kano State government; Bauchi State government and
Gombe State government and they are taking care of each of the states. The
whole state creation has polarized Nigeria. Anambra man, you know yourself when
you were all Anambra people, the moment Enugu were created; those people in the
civil service of Enugu were asked to move to Anambra. Even if you are married
to an Enugu women, they ask you to move to Anambra. There was a problem, which
I am aware of. So, now, the state creation has polarized everybody.
They have taken you literally as a slave. So they cannot take care of you if
you are a slave and take care of people from another state. This is why we have
this problem. Even when Chief Alex Ekwueme came to contest for the Presidency
and Chuba, President of the Senate, people said Anambra has been lording it
over the Igbos. They now want certain position to go to either Imo or Abia, why
is it like that? Are they not all Igbos. They are all Igbos and yet they are
quarrelling talkless of where you have Hausas, Fulanis, Birom, Shendam,
Langtang etc. put together. Even 100% Igbos are quarrelling over position; then
you can imagine what will happen where they have lots of tribes.
You cannot run away from the situation because the opposition is saying the PDP
government has failed because they have not been able to handle the situation.
This issue is not a PDP government affair. It is a Nigerian affair. It happened
in Jos, it is a PDP state. It happened in Kano, it is not a PDP state. Every
governor of a state is both the governor and chief security officer of that
state.
It is not Obasanjo that will come and say stop crises in your state. Obasanjo
is the chief security officer of Nigeria. But he cannot sit in Aso Rock and
know about the small crisis that will erupt in Kano; or Yobe or Gombe. It is
the man on the seat that will know the crisis that will erupt from his state.
Until he is unable to control it before he now contact the president. In most
cases, when the president is contacted, the crises are brought under control
immediately.
Why is it that you resort to federal government to stop crises even in your
community?
We did that because the Federal Government is spread all over the country. We
are a collection of various states and not government of one state that is
making this communiquéé. So, government of various states normally appeal to
the president, not the governor. Of course, when we say authority, we are also
appealing to the governors as well as the President. The President has tried.
He is now going into the police to ensure that those who are crooks in the
police should be flushed out. The police should be armed. The budgetary
allocation to the police has been stepped up. Recruitment into the police has
been stepped up. You cannot do all these within four years.
The PDP chairmen in the north recently claimed that, some people from outside
the north engineer these crises to deny the area presidency in 2007.
We are asking for the Presidency to come to the north. If our house is divided,
external forces will say north is not cohesive. First, it happened to the Igbo
speaking states. About eleven aspirants came up and we discussed this with you
at various fora. They were not even as strong at Igbo level, then they came to
the north looking for support or the west or the south-south. They will not
support Anambra or Enugu or Abia. But if they put their house in order, then
you know they are intact to support them.
Are you saying that you don"t blame external forces?
We are saying that if this situation continues, other zones will exploit it
because everybody is looking for power. You can use any weapon at your disposal
to get power. If we are not united, certainly, external forces will come in.
but if we are united, external forces will say these people are united, back
them. That is what we are saying.
Let us remove the talk of rotation between the north and south, don"t you think
the Igbo are being manginalised in this whole thing?
We are not talking about maginalisation, we are talking about ascendance to the
Presidency. There is a provison that after a certain time the thing goes to the
south, when it comes to the north. We have agreed, not because the south is
marginalized, but we take the south. It was also agreed that after their
tenure, it will come to the north and after a tenure, it will go back to the
south. Now, their tenure is going to be over by 2007. whether we are
marginalized or not, but I am not saying we are marginalized, I have never said
that, it will come to the north; then it goes to the south. The issue of saying
that north has been ruling for 35 years is rubbish because it was not through
election.
If a mad soldier gets up today and over throw government; do we say that it is
a continuation of ruling by a particular tribe? Even the soldiers marginalize
politicians from the north. They don"t just marginalize those from the south.
They came and killed Sardauna and send us packing. They throw away Shagari. If
it is the north that wants to rule, Shagari was overthrown. Even in the
military, Gowon was overthrown. It was a mighty man using an orthodox method to
get power for personal reasons and not for northern reason.
Don"t you think that this same method should apply to the states?
To be candid, you don"t expect a governor to spend eight years from a
particular senatorial zone and then another person comes from that same zone to
be a governor.
What we are saying is that since the country is north and south, why not apply
the same process at the state level?
The geographical composition of Nigeria has always been north and south. The
geographical composition of states has never been north and south; but
senatorial zones.
In Enugu for example, you have north and south?
That is one state. I am talking of a general situation. Go to Gombe and say
north and south. Where is north and south? If you go to Nasarawa, where is
north and south? If you go to Plateau, where is north and south?
When you had the north as a region, you had the west, east and mid-western
regions?
I am not talking about regions. From the advent of the white man, he came and
found the North as one. The amalgamation of the north and south was in 1914.
These were different entities that existed till 1914. From that time till now,
a lot has been happening between the north and south. When we had Prime
Minister, he came from the north and the president came from the south. The
only running mate from a region outside the north was Awolowo and he made a
mistake. Subsequently in 1983, he went to the north to pick his running mate.
Presidential candidates from the south pick their running mates from the north.
We cannot do it any other way.
You talk of the presidency coming to the north. generally, when people talk of
the north, many believe it refers to hausa/fulani. what are the chances of a
southern kaduna or langtang or kogi man winning the presidency?
We have never said the Presidency should come to the far north or the Fulani
area. We say the Presidency should come to the north. When NPN said the
presidency should go to the north, it was zoned to the north; and Tarka came
out to contest; Olusola Saraki came out to contest, Shagari came out to
contest, Prof. Iya Abubakar came out to contest. They were all given fair
chances. We went to Lagos and everybody contested.
Maitama Sule was one of them. We had over 2000 delegates, anybody who emerged
must get half of the votes. Nobody got half of the votes. Shagari got 900
followed by Maitama Sule with 600, then Adamu Ciroma with 300. So, the three of
them went for the next round and went on break. We the youths were for Maitama
Sule, because he was for the youth. Late Mbadiwe and others were all delegates.
They held a meeting and said we'll allow the second round to go after the
break. They convinced Maitama Sule to step down. The man with the highest vote
should be announced.
When they got back, it was Maitama Sule that spoke first. These are his
statement and I always remember them. He said, "I am a bridge between the old
and the young. God is on my side. I now step down for Shagari". That was how
Shagari emerged. Everybody from every part of the north was given chance.
Tarka, Iya Abubakar, were not Fulanis, Saraki, is to some extent. We are not
saying this position should come to the north for the Fulani. Who is the Fulani
man and who are the contestants from the north as at today. If you can name
them, there is no Fulani man among them per se. So, which Fulani are you
talking about. There is no typical Hausa man. Shinkafi is in ANPP, Buhari is in
ANPP. They are the typical Hausa/Fulani. Who else.
You have spoken so well and we know the situation. when will the minorities
like plateau, kogi, benue have the presidency?
I am happy you brought this question. If we are talking of majority being the
deciding factor, if all the tribal groups in the north are put together, they
are more than the Hausa/Fulani. We have different tribes in Nasarawa State. We
have then in Gombe State, Bauchi State, we have Tiv, Idoma etc. if you put them
together, they are more in number than the Hausas and Fulani. How come Shagari
won? Shagari won based on his merit. In fact, after the election, you see that
it was the minority states of the North that voted Shagari. How many votes did
Shagari get in Sokoto, Kano didn't vote for Shagari.
Middle belt people say they are not part of the North and that they will field
their own candidate. How do you react to that?
Nobody is saying Middle Belt is not North. By definition of Middle Belt, I come
from there. All the governors of the 19 northern states attend governors'
meeting in the North, from whatever states in the North. All the 19 chairmen in
the North, including those who come from wherever is called Middle Belt too.
The North is a larger dimension of Nigeria.
Again, the former eastern region included Rivers, Cross Rivers etc. The former
western region included Edo and Delta. Some of these people are now in the
Niger Delta area. So, if people from the North want to call themselves Middle
Belt, they have not said they are not from the northern part of Nigeria.

   

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