Voters in Plateau state were determined to remove Governor Simon Lalong and the remaining vestiges of the All Progressives Congress dispensation from the space of governance in the State, and to clear the atmosphere for the much-needed gust of fresh air to once again blow across the land, and that was exactly what they did. Seriki Adinoyi reports.
The outcome of the recent governorship election in Plateau State is not only a clear reflection of the people’s mood about Governor Simon Lalong and the All Progressives Congress in the state, but it’s also a clear pointer to the people’s intolerance for inefficiency.
Few days to the governorship poll, Vice President-elect, Senator Kashim Shettima visited the state to mobilize Muslim communities in the state to vote for the APC candidate.
Following the visit, a famous Cleric, Sheikh Yahaya Jingri, openly campaigned against the PDP candidate, calling on all Muslims in the state to vote against him because he will not protect Muslims’ interest.
This even angered the electorate more, because for a state like Plateau that had suffered from several religious crises in the past, such inflammatory utterances was counter-productive. Movement for the Survival of Plateau (MOSOP) even went ahead to call for Jingri’s arrest.
But despite all of these, the PDP did not only win the Governorship seat, but also won far more National and State Assembly seats in the elections. It goes to explain how disenchanted the electorate now feel about the APC because of its poor performance in the state in the past eight years.
INEC Returning Officer of the governorship election, Professor Idris Amali, while declaring the results of the election said Mr. Caleb Mutfwang of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled a total of 525,299 votes to beat his closest rival, Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who polled 481,370 votes.
Dr. Patrick Dakum of the Labour Party (LP) came third with 60,310 votes.
Mutfwang won in 10 Local Government Areas (LGAs); namely Barkin Ladi, Bassa, Langtang North, Mikang, Langtang South, Riyom, Mangu, Jos South, Bokkos, QuanPan, while Yiltwada won in seven LGAs vis Jos East, Kanke, Pankshin, Shendam, Wase, Kanam, and Jos North. Following the announcement of the Governorship election results by INEC the entire city of Jos, the state capital went into high jubilation.
The people of Plateau said they decided to retire the APC from the state because they had witnessed backwardness in the past eight years of APC’s government.
One would wonder how Governor Simon Lalong would be feeling by now; that after ‘serving’ his people for eight long years, the only reward he got was an embarrassment and humiliation at the polls. He lost his bid to go to the Senate, he failed to win presidential elections for APC even though he was appointed the Director General of Tinubu/Shettima presidential campaign council, and he was finally humiliated at the governorship polls where his candidate, Nentawe was floored by the PDP candidate, Mutfwang.
How did he miss it? What went wrong that a Governor that got the overwhelming support of his people in 2015 lost so recklessly?
Right from the outset of his administration, Lalong missed it when he attributed his victory to the support of the Hausa Muslims in the state.
He had publicly declared in 2015 when a Muslim group paid him a Sallah homage in his office that he owed them gratitude for his victory at the polls. Lalong had forgotten that what brought him to power was protest votes against former Governor Jonah Jang over his violation of rotational arrangement in the state when he fielded GNS Pwajok, his kinsman from the same Northern senatorial zone to take over from him after completing his eight-year tenure.
Though Jang claimed he heard from God to do so, the people were never convinced that God would ask him to violate a peaceful understanding reached by the people.
So they voted against him and his candidate in protest.
That was how Lalong, a relatively fresh politician, and APC a barely known party to Plateau people then took over power in 2015 with a mindset to do the bidding of the group that he perceived brought him to power.
His utterances were as if all that mattered to him was Aso Rock and how not to step on President Muhammadu Buhari’s toes, and how to do everything to favour the core North.
Alas! That’s the last thing an average Plateau man would want to see in their Governor; making them an appendage of the core North.
Plateau has consistently defined itself as Middle Belt and not an appendage of the North as the Hausa/Fulani would want to make them look.
But Lalong worked against this. Under the guise of running an all-inclusive government, Lalong dominated his Government with strange persons; people that are alien to Plateau and its government.
To give him a sense of achievement in terms of bringing peace to the state, the once-sustained onslaught on the people of Plateau for refusing to adopt open grazing legislation in the state was temporarily withheld so that Lalong could pride himself as one that returned peace to the state after about six months of assuming power.
This gave him the guts to gleefully berate his fellow governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State before newsmen at the State House in Abuja for implementing its anti-open grazing legislation. Lalong openly chastised Ortom before the entire country when the Governor was mourning the death of over 70 victims of herdsmen attacks on his state.
He had said, “I told the Governor of Benue when he was doing the law; I said, look, why don’t you tread softly, take other steps before you start implementation, but he didn’t heed….”
Even Lalong’s Plateau people were embarrassed by his obvious lack of compassion for the dead and their loved ones.
To further intoxicate him with power, the Northern Governors’ Forum made him Chairman, and this made him to speak to Plateau people with the audacity of a monarch. He had forgotten that the same people put him there.
This was not what the Plateau people wanted in their Governor. They wanted a Governor that will protect their dignity and independence from the Northern oligarchy; they wanted a Governor that will have their back; they wanted a man that will not sell them out.
When finally the chips went down, Plateau probably suffered more attacks than Benue; from the Northern Senatorial zone to the South, no tribe was spared. The Irigwe and Anaguta farmers literarily became helpless as they were persistently attacked. The farmers in Riyom, Barkin Ladi, Jos South were not spared. In one night, over 120 persons were killed in Barkin Ladi Local Government, and the victims’ houses and farmlands were taken away from them. The President had to personally visit Plateau on an emergency.
No fewer than 100 traders were also attacked and brought down in Wase on a hot Sunday afternoon by the same people that Lalong taught he was working for.
Rather than hurrying back home to meet his people, Lalong continued his campaign rally.
In all of these, Lalong would rather gauge his personal interests and those of Aso Rock and turn his back on his people.
He abandoned Plateau people to the evil designs of their enemies.
In his response to this provocation, Lalong once said, “I am not justifying anybody to carry AK-47, but don’t forget that in the course of our deliberations and investigations, it was not only Fulani herdsmen that were carrying AK-47, but even farmers were also carrying AK-47.”
But it was obvious that, once again, he was merely playing politics with such matters of life and death mainly to secure his own personal survival.
It was at this point farmers in Plateau and indeed other parts of the country, who had been at the receiving end of the terrorism gave up on the Governor. Other Nigerians who were once again shocked by his utter insensitivity, insincerity, and refusal to squarely place blame where it really belonged lent their voices in denouncing the governor’s strange and unbelievable position.
There is nothing to credit to his name in the past eight years; no infrastructure or any other developmental stride. The Legacy Project he started went forth and back and eventually collapsed.
Even the salary and pension that he started paying has stopped midway, rather he has accumulated a huge debt for his successor.
In all of these, rather than staying back to salvage the mess he has caused in his state, ‘The Absentee Governor’ will prefer to remain in Abuja.
His final gaffe’ was probably his endorsement of infamous Muslim-Muslim ticket and agreeing to selling the ticket.
For a Plateau Governor, what Lalong did was a heavy moral baggage. He will be remembered as the first Nigerian Knight of Catholic Faith that condescended so low. No wonder, his predecessor warned him that his shame was imminent at the polls, and that was exactly what he got in the recent elections; an all-round defeat, a humiliation, a shame indeed!
He wanted to go to the Senate and follow in the footsteps of his predecessors – Joshua Dariye and Jonah Jang. But this has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster because he has not conducted himself and led the state as a true son. Nentawe was a casualty of his bad governance. He may have been a good man, but Lalong became the albatross that made the people sank him and his aspiration when he forced him on the APC, a development that shredded the party into pieces.
The governor-elect has opened his arm to integrate opposition candidates into his government. Dr. Patrick Dakum of the Labour Party has already called to show solidarity to him. Nentawe may as well take a bold step, remove Lalong’s albatross off his neck and do same.
For a man who can settle for any position so far as it gives him a semblance of public visibility, Lalong must continue to hang around Tinubu despite his abysmal outing as his campaign DG. At least, in his own reckoning, that would allow him share in the limelight that would shine on the APC’s high and mighty.
