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| Wadak |
Plateau state is in bondage: Gov. Lalong,
a product of due process and rule of law has failed to give same back to the
society – Wadak
Isaac Wadak is a retired Permanent
Secretary in the Plateau State Civil Service. A Certified National Accountant,
a business man and a politician. He was an aspirant for the Plateau Central
Senatorial District in the just concluded PDP primaries. In this exclusive
interview with African Drum, he bares his mind on the administration of
Governor Lalong, the recent concluded Local Government election in Plateau
state among other pressing issues.
Enjoy the excerpts.
Sir, you declared your interest to contest
for the Plateau Central Senatorial Seat but later dropped your ambition. Were
you forced to drop or you did it voluntarily?
No. I was not force to drop. As you are aware,
five of us from the Angas ethnic stock declared interest and in the wisdom of stakeholders;
it was resolved that we should reach an agreement and allowed one person to go
for secondary election. So, we met severally but we couldn’t reach a compromise
on a person, consequently, we sought for a third party to intervene. I also submitted myself to the process set by
the third party which eventually, did not favour me as I didn’t come out
successfully. In that process, Alexander Mwolwus came first. And going by the
arrangement or agreement, we had to rally round him and give him the maximum support
and that is exactly what I did.
So one can be right to say that you succumbed
to the yearning of your community?
Absolutely.
Your party, the PDP recently concluded its
primaries in which Senator Jeremiah Timbut Useni who is above 70 years beat
other younger aspirants to emerge winner. What do you make of this development
taking into account that Useni could be the oldest governor since the advent of
democracy in Nigeria if he eventually wins the secondary election?
I want to take an exception to the issue of
age when it comes to electioneering matters. Over time, we have history of
people who were much older than Useni that became governors. The case of
Adekunle Ajasin is still fresh in our minds. He was very old but performed creditably
well as governor of old Ondo state. (We), dedicated members of the PDP believe
that the emergence of Useni came through a fair process. And I want to say that
the young people are in sync with him. I am saying so because we conducted an analysis
of all the delegates that performed the exercise and I can tell you that more
than 85 per cent of both statutory and ad-hoc delegates were made up of young people
mostly below the age of 50. So, there is something they saw in this man that
prompted them to give him the mandate. And don’t forget that when late GNS
Pwajok, a young man that contested the governorship in 2015, got the full
support of J.T. Useni.In the light of this, the youths are probably looking at
it from that perspective. Though from my recent discussion with some of the
youths, they felt that there is the need for Useni to close up the gap between
them because they feel there is a distance between them and him. But I believe
in no distant time, this issue would be addressed. But in all, the youths have
much confidence and trust in Useni.
A lot
of promises were made by the APC which ushered in the Lalong led administration
in Plateau State. Would you say that Gov. Lalong has kept to his promises in
line with his rescue mission?
Will, to me, the rescue mission has not been
properly defined for anyone to understand it’s all about. I don’t know whether the
rescue mission was just to rescue them from the purported mistake of Jang or
from what? I really don’t know. So far, the Plateau person instead of being rescue
is still in bondage. Do your independent investigation and found out whether
the Plateau person has been rescued or not.
How
would you access the administration of Lalong generally?
In percentages or from just a particular
sector?
Lets look at the issue of security, how would
you assess him based on that?
Lalong has performed poorly in this area.
Because almost every day when you wake up, the first thing you hear about Plateau
State is death, blood, chaos and arson. It is that bad and very unfortunate.
. On the Economy?
When you talk of economy, you know basically,
Plateau State is more of a commercial and trading town because there are no
manufacturing industries. And when you talk of trading, you are talking of
markets, but where are the markets in Plateau State? Have you seen any serious
trading going on? So, that is the aspect of the economy you can talk about.
Manufacturing, you already know, all the industries in the state are in comatose;
they are not working, they are not producing.
PLASIECE just conducted Local government
elections in the state which the state government said it was free, fair,
transparent and credible. Do you agree to that and would you also say that the
outcome of the election was a reflection of the electorates?
Yes, the elections were free, fair and
credible but the end result is what I can say is not free, fair and credible. I
was physically present in my Local Government during the elections and I know
what happened from the polling units up to ward levels. You know how it works. When
results are collated at the ward level and the jubilation follows, celebrating
with the candidate that won. In my ward, it is the same thing. We know the person
that won only to be told later that the returning officer was nowhere to be
found to receive the results from the wards. And I was made to understand that a
similar thing happened in all the other local government areas that the exercise was
carried out only for PLASIEC to announce some different results concocted by it. It’s very unfortunate and disturbing. I can tell you that Governor
Lalong has compounded his problems by further loosing the trust of the people
of Plateau state following the charade exercise in the name of election. I am
beginning to believe the speculation, though not exactly profound that the
election conducted was not done with good intention. That It was only meant to
justify the expenditure that was going to be incurred in carrying out the
exercise. If the election was not conducted, there was going to be serious
problem in explaining to the people of Plateau state how this sum of money came
out from the government coffers. Because it is as if all these things were
pre-determined.
Would
you say your party, is vindicated, because prior to the elections, series of
statements were made by your party accusing the ruling APC of pre-determining
its outcome.
.
Absolutely, my party is vindicated and the people of Plateau and lovers of
democracy are vindicated too.
. What does this portends?
Misery, Absolute misery. You can’t tell me
that Local Government Chairmen in Plateau State were inaugurated yesterday
without the usual funfair. This is the height of misery for the people of Plateau
State. It is sad, very sad.
What is your advice to the people of Plateau
state?
A.
My advice is that the people should remain calm and follow legitimate means of
redressing their grievances. The people of the State by now should know that we
need real demonstrates to lead us. We need people who believe in democracy. For
goodness sake, Lalong is a product of due process and rule of law. so, I see no reason why he can’t
give back to the society what it gave him. For over three years he has deprived
the third tier system democratic governance, yet he is a beneficiary of it. So,
it’s sad. I really don’t know whether Lalong is a democrat or anarchist. As far
as am concern, this is a recipe for anarchy.
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